A Different Fork at the Crossroads of Destiny
by Densharr
Summary: What if Zuko hadn't chosen to follow Azula in the Crystal Catacombs of Ba Sing Se? What if he had never lost Katara's trust, and never re-united with Mai? AU My take on pretty much the entire third book... Spoiler for S3 - On temporary hiatus
1. The Descision that Changed Everything

A/N: Hello all, this is me. This story begins during the very end of Book two, episode 20 (The Crossroads of Destiny). Pretty much the theme of this fic is what could (in my opinion, at least) have happened had Zuko NOT betrayed Katara, Iroh and Aang for Azula. What if he had heeded the call of Good over the call of blood and family? Just an early warning to all shippers out there – I am a MAJOR Zutara fan, so this story will be a Zutara, the other shippings to be decided. Hell, I may even set up a poll. To start, I'll mainly be recounting the scenes in the Crystal Catacombs, because these will be the only scenes that have major changes. I'll skip over the others, because they're either unimportant, or they plain don't change. Anyways, onto the story!

DISCLAIMER: I don't own avatar: tla, but I wish that I did.... Dreams are dreams. All things created by Bryke and Whos-it belong to them, and the Nickelodeon corporation. And by things I mean characters, places, bending, etc...

**BOOK 2: EARTH**  
CHAPTER 20: THE CROSSROADS OF DESTINY

Down in the glowing green florescence of the crystal caverns, there was a figure near the wall, pounding on one of the glowing crystals in exasperation.

"How could we have been so foolish?" Katara ranted

"I mean, we couldn't have taken ten seconds to greet the Kyoshians? I cannot believe this...."

Trailing off into silence, she started pacing back and forth. Not long after she started, she heard a grumbling coming from the entry tunnel, where the Dai Li had shoved her into this prison. A bright ring of light appeared, and she could see three figures – two Dai Li agents, she realised by their distinctive hats, holding the third figure, who appeared to be her new cellmate. One of the agents called out:

"You've got company",

The other agent then proceeded to toss his prisoner down the shaft. With a masculine yell, the figure tumbled down the shaft, landing at her feet. Her eyes widened as she realised who it was.

"Zuko!" she said, a moment before the reality hit her, and her face twisted in anger as the agents sealed the shaft once more as Zuko looked at her from his knees.

--- --- --- oOo --- --- ---

With Zuko's back to her, Katara started ranting at him, without even hearing his side.

"Why did they throw you in here?" when he didn't respond immediately, she half-turned away and said

"Oh, wait, let me guess: it's a trap" As she started walking away from him, she continued on her angry tirade.

"So when Aang shows to help me, you can finally have him in your little Fire Nation clutches." At this, Zuko looked over his shoulder at her from where he sat cross-legged on the ground, face set in a despairing look. As he looked at her (righteously) angry face, he thought to himself

"_Agni, she's angry. If she's not going to listen anyways, I might as well not bother..."_ he then turned his head back and continued staring at the ground, lost in thought.

As Katara watched him look at her, then turn away, she angrily started up again.

"You're a terrible person, you know that? Always following us, hunting the Avatar, trying to catch the world's last hope for peace?" Looking away in disgust, she mutters

"But what do you care? You're the Fire Lord's son. Spreading war, and violence, and hatred is in your blood"

Not able to hold himself back any longer, Zuko angrily growls as he turns to look at her:"You don't know what you're talking about"

"_What"_ she thought to herself. Whirling towards him with a furious expression on his face, she nearly yelled at him. "I don't? How dare you? You have no idea what this war has put me through, me personally" Crouching down, she turned away from him so that he wouldn't be able to see the tears that had already started to fall from her eyes. Reaching up and softly touching her mother's necklace, she confessed to him. "The Fire Nation took my mother away from me"

Unable to see her face, Zuko never the less heard the sadness and loss in her voice. He managed to rasp out a delayed "I'm sorry" as she stared to audibly cry into her legs. Feeling the strangest compulsion to connect with her, he turned towards her and told her one of the most painful facts of his short life: "That's something we have in common."

As she heard this, her heart suddenly felt heavy, and he wiped away her tears with her sleeve as she turned towards him.

--- --- --- oOo --- --- ---

"_Tui's mercy.... I had no idea.... but he's the Fire Nation PRINCE, by La. Does that mean that the... Queen? Of the Fire Nation is dead?"_ Deciding not to ask about that clearly sensitive subject, they both stood and she bowed her head to him "I'm sorry for yelling at you before"

"It doesn't matter", Zuko said, his voice cracking with shame and grief, but he felt a mild thrill at her apology.

"It's just that for so for so long now, when I would imagine the face of the enemy, it would be your face" she said, beginning to feel horribly guilty, as she began to realise the truth. Had she really been so caught up in her hate of the Fire Nation that she had failed to consider that they were people too, not just tyrannical monsters? That they could have families, feel emotions other than hate and anger? She had horribly misjudged the young Prince.

"My face" Zuko stated, turning away slightly. Reaching a hand to his scar, he finished his sentence "I see..."

"No, no, that's not what I meant." She said, walking towards him

"Its okay" he said, lowering his hand "I used to think that this scar marked me, the mark of the banished Prince, cursed to chase the Avatar forever. But lately, I've realised that I'm free to determine my own destiny, even if I'll never be free of my mark". He lowered his eyes, not in shame, but in remembrance of that terrible day, of the incredible pain that he had felt, with the image of his father, the Fire Lord, telling him that mercy is a weakness.

"Maybe you could be free of it" Katara said quietly, getting Zuko's complete attention.

"What?" he said, opening his eyes from his small reverie_. "Could she really heal my scar? Is that even possible? But the healers at the palace..." _he turned towards her as she continued.

"I have healing abilities" she said, hoping that she could help repair at least the physical damage, if not the emotional trauma.

"It's a scar", he said bitterly "It can't be healed"

Reaching underneath her tunic, Katara drew out a small, cone-shaped vial decorated in blue and white cloth "This is water from the Spirit Oasis at the North Pole. It has special properties, so I've been saving it for something important." Walking towards him until she was close enough to feel the heat of his breath, she continued. "I don't know if it would work, but".... she then trailed off into silence. Closing his eyes, Zuko thought that she didn't realise the burden of wearing this scar, this... mark that would forever brand him as a traitor to the Fire Nation, his homeland. Lost in his thoughts, he didn't realise that she had raised her arm until he felt her cool, soft hands touching his scar. Although surprised, he didn't pull away when she touched it. Until then, besides himself, only the healers at the palace had touched it, and only as long as absolutely needed. Not even Uncle had touched it, but somehow.... somehow it felt right that she was touching it.

As Katara felt the scar, she realised that it wasn't nearly as rough as she had thought it to be by its angry appearance. It was unnaturally smooth in the way that all scars were, except that the surface was pitted with small hills and depressions. She also began to realise that she didn't think the scar ugly – it was just part of Zuko, not some huge, red scar. After what seemed like an eternity to both teenagers, a rumble and crash came from behind Katara and they both turned and looked to see a huge dust cloud fly out from the wall as it exploded.

"Please let it be Aang" she hoped, and thankfully, her prayers were answered when from the cloud of sediment a familiar tattooed face appeared, accompanied by the old man who hung out Zuko. His... uncle, if she recalled correctly. She ran towards him with a smile on her face as she wrapped up the Avatar in her arms.

As Aang cleared the dust, he heard Katara's voice call his name and he was suddenly engulfed in a big blue hug. Looking over her shoulder, he noticed that from where she had come from, she had to have been standing awfully close to the other occupant.... which happened to be the exiled Prince. Shooting him a dirty look, (_What's he doing, standing so close to MY Katara?_) his line of sight was broken when Iroh ran up to Zuko and gave him a big platypus-bear hug. After Zuko's surprise wore off, he glared right back at the Avatar, daring him to call him out on whatever he had done wrong in his eyes.

--- --- --- oOo --- --- ---

As Zuko and Iroh separated, Aang and Katara followed suite, but she kept the Avatar at arm's length and pulled him in for another hug. "Aang, I knew that you would come" she said gratefully, realising now that she had perhaps enjoyed her alone time with the Prince a little too much. She immediately felt guilty and pulled him in for a tighter hug, put let go when he pulled away as Zuko started to speak.

"Uncle, I don't understand. What are you doing with the Avatar?" Zuko demanded, pointing at the boy in question.

"Saving you, that's what" Aang said with more than a hint of anger in his voice. Zuko growled and began to rush at the him until a firm arm caught him by the middle.

"Zuko... it's time we talked" his uncle said, giving him a serious look that also managed to convey a feeling of "not now". Adopting a pleasant smile, Iroh turned to Katara and Aang. "Go help your other friends – we'll catch up with you."

As Aang dashed down the hallway, Katara walked after him, giving a longing look at the former Fire Prince that she hadn't realised had so much in common with her. Wanting to finish their conversation, but knowing what her duty was, she eventually turned her eyes from the downcast firebender as she sadly headed down the darkened hallway after Aang.

"Why, Uncle?" asked Zuko of Iroh, sounding almost... defeated.

"You are not the man you used to be, Zuko. You are stronger, and wiser and freer than you have ever been. And now, you have come to the crossroads of your destiny. It's time for you to choose. It's time for you to choose... Good." As the words left Iroh's mouth, a tinkling rumble was heard and Iroh was captured in a prison of crystal. Zuko yelled in alarm as he dropped into a firebending stance and watched two Dai Li agents and her sister sprang out from a side corridor. Azula stepped in front of the Dai Li agents, and prepared to speak.

"I expected this kind of treachery from Uncle, but Zuko... Prince Zuko, you're a lot of things, but you're not a traitor... are you?" Azula gave him a questioning look as she awaited his answer.

"Release him immediately!" demanded Zuko.

"It's not too late for you, Zuko" Azula said, stepping back a step "You can still redeem yourself"

"The kind of redemption she offers is not for you" Iroh called out from his glass prison, hoping to help Zuko resist his sister's siren tongue.

"Why don't you let him decide, Uncle?" giving the man a harsh glare. She softened as she looked back at her elder brother "I need you, Zuko. I've plotted every move of this day, this glorious day in Fire Nation history, and the only way we win is together. At the end of this day, you WILL have your honour back. You have Father's love. You will have everything you want." (_You'll have my love, brother.)_

"Zuko, I am begging you. Look into your heart and see what it is that you truly want." His uncle implored from his prison (_Please, Zuko, do not forget all that I have taught you, all that you have been through...)_

"You are free to choose" said Azula, raising her right arm, dismissing the two Dai Li standing behind her. They raised short pedestals of stone and glided back the way they came as Azula walked down the hallway after the Avatar without so much as a backward glance, leaving Zuko standing there, head bowed in thought.

--- --- --- oOo --- --- --

As all this was happening, Aang and Katara had continued running and they eventually came onto this big, open chamber with a small but deep trench, filled with water.

"We've got to find Sokka and Toph" Katara managed to puff out to Aang as they ran through the room. Aang heard something and they turned, only to see a sheet of blue fire roll towards them. Thinking quickly, Aang raised a shield of earth from the ground and barely managed to hold back the blast, being pushed back about a half dozen feet. As the smoke cleared, they saw Azula standing ready in a firebending pose. With instincts honed by her encounters with Zuko, Katara charged towards the vicious firebender, collecting a massive wave of water as she ran. Tossing it at Azula with all her strength, she saw it crash down and she wondered if she, a mere waterbending peasant from the South Pole, could have possibly defeated the great Princess Azula with a single attack. Her hope was crushed when she saw a massive cloud of steam erupt from her wave. As her and Aang set into defensive stances, Azula came flying out of the steam cloud and started punching fireballs at them as she landed on a stone pillar. Working together, Katara and Aang pulled up a shield from the trench and blocked this initial attack. As soon as the shield was no longer needed, Aang earthbent to pillar into crumbling beneath Azula, enraging her and causing her to jump down and land near the two other benders. Pointing a hand towards them both, her eyes flickered nervously between the two. She knew that she was a match for nearly any other bender alone, but she respected the Avatar's power enough to doubt her victory when faced with him and the waterbending master. Out of nowhere, a giant orange fireball came and landed between the Avatar and Azula. Everybody turned and saw Zuko standing in a firebending stance, with a dangerous look to his eye. As he came closer, he half circled around the Avatar and Azula, his eyes flickering from one to the other. His eyes stopped on Aang, and his hand drew back, preparing to launch a fire blast. Aang conjured an air blast to propel himself back, but it wasn't needed. He swept his arm across his body and threw a sheet of orange fire at Azula. Her face, which had been set onto a smirk when he had focused on the Avatar, flipped to a shocked expression as she blocked the blast with her own blue fire. Aang, Zuko and Katara all started to advance on her, pinning her against the trench.

--- --- --- oOo --- --- ---

Azula was having a difficult time defending herself against the two master benders (_Impressive how much you've improved, Zuzu..._) and the Avatar. She managed to unleash a huge blast against the Avatar, making him hit the wall and get buried by rubble, but doing so opened herself to an attack by Katara, which she barely dodged. In fact, it sheared a few hairs from her long hair. She responded by dropping herself to her hands and doing a rolling kick back up, making a huge circular wave flow out towards the remaining benders. Zuko managed to dissipate the fire directly around him, but Katara couldn't draw enough water in time and was blasted backwards and hit a crystal formation.

"Katara!" yelled Zuko, but was nearly drowned out by the explosion of rock that Aang had earthbent. With a massive leap, the airbender flew through the ait and landed heavily, earthbending a crater and creating a rolling ball of rock to hopefully steamroll Azula. As he rode atop it, it picked up speed until nearly at Azula's position. Then a figure jumped in front of the rock and moved his hands as if parting a curtain. The Dai Li agent tore the sphere apart and made Aang fly to a stop not far from Zuko. Zuko, Katara and Aang looked around and saw Dai Li agents, dozens of them, jump from the walls and join in on the fight. A dozen jumped around Katara and she pulled water from the trench into her defensive "octopus" stance, with her tentacles whirling around, protecting her. Aang was about to go to her aid when Zuko grabbed his arm.

"We've got bigger problems, Avatar" he said, motioning to the dozens of Dai Li agents surrounding them and Azula, who was now wearing a smirk on her face.

"...There's too many" whispered Aang, not believing that the good guys might possibly lose. Then Guru Pathik's word's came to him "The only way is to let her go". Aang lowered his arms in defeat, and let a single tear escape his eyes as he whispered to himself "I'm sorry, Katara". Turning to Zuko, he told him to hold them off as long as he could, and, without warning, stomped the ground and created himself a crystalline shelter. As Zuko launched wave after wave of fire at the Dai Li, they kept blocking with half their number and attacking him with those stone hands with the other half until suddenly, they all collectively took a step back. Even Azula stepped back when Aang's shelter began to glow with the pure white light signifying the presence of the Avatar spirit. A the glow intensified, Zuko turned around to see what all his opponents were looking at and managed an "Agni..." before the structure exploded, making him fly backwards and land near Katara, who promptly ran towards him, getting him into the centre of her defensive stance until he could get up. The Dai Li were momentarily awed at the sight of a fully awoken Avatar as he arose from the remains of the formation in a column of pure, blinding light. Katara looked upon with hope, and a little trepidation (_what if he kills those Dai Li agents? What if I can't stop him...? Nonsense, he wouldn't have come back without fully mastering the Avatar State... right?_) as his glory spilled across the room.

Then came the thing that nobody had expected. Azula struck Aang down with an expertly aimed lightning bolt, causing his eyes and tattoos to dim and let him drop to the ground. As Zuko rose, he and Katara watched Aang fall, and as her tears dropped, she gathered up all her water and created a wave to carry her and Zuko to Aang, knocking over the Dai Li agents who stood in their way. As Katara knelt on the ground, fallen Avatar in her arms, Zuko put a supporting hand on her shoulder. As she looked up, she could see the compassion in his eyes – not that the Avatar fell, but that it was one of her dearest friends. Azula walked towards them and Zuko stood between them and her, blocking them with his own body. As he managed to block the first blow, the second threw him back and he fell. Before the next blast could reach them, however, a larger red-ish fireball came from a side passage above them and Iroh jumped down, taking a defensive stance where Zuko had been not too long ago.

"Go! You have to get out of here! I'll hold her off as long as I can!" he cried; as he started throwing fireballs at not only Azula, but at the sopping wet Dai Li who had started to emerge from the trench.

"No! Uncle, I'll help you hold them off!" Cried Zuko, wanting to stay with his uncle. Now that he had chosen, he refused to leave the man who had made it all possible with his limitless patience and kindness.

"No! Zuko, your destiny lies with the Avatar now! Take Katara and Aang and get out of here! Go now!" Iroh yelled, the look in his eyes daring Zuko to defy him. "I order you as the Dragon of the West! Protect Master Katara and Avatar Aang!" Eyes shining with unshed tears, Zuko nodded and picked Aang out of Katara's arms. As he held the Avatar, he was again surprised at how little the boy weighed. As he and Katara dashed to the trench and to the waterfall that supplied it, Zuko took one last look at his uncle Iroh, bravely fending off not only Azula, but a dozen of the Dai Li as well. Katara raised a vortex of water around herself and Zuko, and she carried the three of them up the face of the waterfall, leaving Iroh behind, fighting to keep the path clear of pursuers. The last Zuko saw of Iroh, he got sealed by the Dai Li in a crystal coffin, with a triumphant Azula smirking at her captured uncle.

--- --- --- oOo --- --- ---

Not too long later, as the Gaang (now including Zuko), flew away on Appa. With Sokka driving, Toph, Zuko, King Kuei, Bosco and Momo looked worriedly upon Katara and Aang as she took the vial of spirit water from her tunic and pressed it into Aang's back, where Azula's lightning had hit him. When he didn't show any indication of life, Katara started crying over him, until his arrow glowed for a second, and he started to groan. She laid him down, and he gave her a smile as he saw her tear-stained face. She pulled him in for a hug, and everybody sighed with relief as he slowly fell back asleep. Sokka called for Appa to hurry away from there, and as they sailed towards the Outer Wall of Ba Sing Se, the King Kuei looked back upon his city.

"The Earth Kingdom... has fallen."

A/N P.S.: ...So? What did you think? The episode ended the exact same except for the fact that Zuko's now with the Gaang instead of Azula. Now Azula gets the glory of having "killed" the Avatar. So, my fellow Zutarians, this means that Zuko never reunites with Mai.... which means that I have to rewrite the entire Burning Rock episode... both parts.... damnit. Don't hesitate to call me out on anything, such as out-of character-ness, the wrong lines, incorrect information, etc.... this is my first "actual" fanfic, so here's hoping for the best.


	2. Interlude: Zuko's Revelation

A/N: Okay, so this little drabble here happens not too long after they escape Ba Sing Se – you can probably tell by the first few paragraphs. Anyways, I just wanted to get under Zuko's skin a little bit – he'd certainly be undergoing some sort of inner turmoil. I mean, he just turned down everything that he's ever wanted from his father – his honour back, his place on the throne... maybe even his father's love. Anyways, I haven't decided if I'm going to do another little interlude that happens sometime before they reach the Fire Nation, where Zuko gets the official meet and greet with the Gaang (minus Aang, who's pretty much on a pseudo-coma the entire flight, as the shows does it), and, later (or maybe in a separate drabble) where they meet up with Hakoda, Bato and the rest of the guys. What do you guys think? Well, here it is... don't be afraid to yell at me if I've made Zuko too OOC....

**Interlude: Zuko's Revelation**

As the Gaang flew out of Ba Sing Se, over the Outer Wall, Zuko looked on in wonder as Katara took out her vial and healed Aang with it. _"If she could bring the Avatar back from the dead with it, it could have healed my scar_..." After the emotional healing, everybody riding on Appa sat back in relief. Not even Toph had the spirit to crack a bad joke. They were all too emotionally drained.

As Zuko began to relax, he noticed two very important things. One: he did NOT like flying. This was going to take some getting used to, he thought, looking over to the small girl, who he assumed was the Avatar's earthbending teacher, who was looking vaguely uneasy as well. The second was the fact that he had just given up on his last chance to go home, for real. He wouldn't be accepted by his father now, no matter what.

All of a sudden, the reality hit him. _He could never return to the Fire Nation. _This came almost as a physical blow to him. All that he had worked on for the past three years... gone. Had he made the right choice? As he had entered the chamber with the trio, his heart had called out to him to defend Katara and the Avatar against Azula, and so he had jumped to their defence. Had he really given everything up to HELP the Avatar? His position, his influence, his honour... gone, all gone. _"No, not gone"_ a voice echoed in his head. His uncle's voice. The one voice that had always been there for him. He had been there after he got scarred – in fact, it was his uncle who, with great sadness, had delivered the terms of his banishment to him. His father hadn't even cared enough to deliver the news him... Here Zuko stopped. _His father hadn't cared enough to deliver the message to him personally. Had his father even cared in the first place?_

All of a sudden, hints from the past three and a half years all fell into place. His scarring. His father's refusal to see him. His subsequent banishment. The three YEARS that he had spent at sea, searching for something that should, by all rights, be long dead. And, most tellingly, (then) Commander Zhao's comment before their Agni Kai:

"_If your father really wanted you home, he would have let you return by now: Avatar or no Avatar. But in his eyes, you are a failure, and a disgrace to the Fire Nation."_

His father didn't love him. Perhaps, probably even likely, he never had. Could a man such as him, one who had scarred his own son, truly love anyone? He had always seemed to love Azula more than him. But did he love her for who she was, or what she was? Did he love her as a daughter, or as a firebending prodigy? If his father loved him, would he be one of the most wanted people in the Fire Nation?

Zuko came to realise that perhaps his uncle, and his lessons, struck closer to home than he realised. After all, he HAD chosen the side of good over family and honour, right? Of course, what kind of family was his? After realising the truth about the Fire Lord, he realised that it wasn't much of a draw anymore to earn his love. Parental love should never have to be earned. He had learnt this from his uncle – he had never told the old man, but he secretly considered him more of a father than his own was. Azula hadn't been too bad of a sister – that is, before his mother disappeared. It seemed that that night had changed more than just himself: Azula, too, had changed. Instead of just being show-offish and arrogant and merely mischievous, she had become pointedly cruel and vicious. Every now and then, he could see hints of how she had been before – it was actually her that had helped him perfect his fire kicks before his banishment.

As he thought about it, he began to regret his choice less and less. And the look on Uncle's face as he had fought on the Avatar's team versus Azula and the Dai Li... The look of pride on his face easily outmatched anything that Ozai had ever provided him with. The most that he had gotten from his "father" was a grudging acceptance. As the day wore on, he became more and more comfortable with his decision, and he eventually relaxed enough to fall asleep, regardless of his... discomfort with flying. His final thought before everything went black was: Why do I keep thinking of Katara _before_ the Avatar?

A/N P.S. And, finally, here I give thanks to my wonderful reviewers: Eswin, ArrayePL, Smileyone1 and Gaby. And I have no clue what other ships to support on here – I'll probably have a poll up to determine that. The only ship confirmed is Zutara, a previously mentioned.


	3. The Awakening, Part I

DISCLAIMER: Don't own it, never WILL own it (unless, there's a miracle, by some chance.) If I did, It would have been Zuko that Katara kissed at the end of the series, damnit, and it wouldn't have left us with that paltry excuse of an ending (I mean, come on, the entire Zuko/Ozai confrontation scene? Just BEGGING to be continued...)

A/N: I WAS going to do an intermediate chapter, where Zuko meets Hakoda and Bato and them, but I got insane writer's block when I tried to write it. So I decided to just continue on to the Book of Fire and make everything about the meetings in flashbacks – these will be separated with page breaks and completely in italics.

**BOOK 3: FIRE**  
CHAPTER ONE: THE AWAKENING, PART I

Aang awoke with a groan on a hard cot. He'd had the strangest dream – random flashes and sequences of images. He remembered being struck by a bolt of lightning, Appa's strong scent, Katara's blue eyes crying over him, A figure crying into Zuko's shoulder, Sokka sitting next to him while three figures huddled together, a beach, a metal ship-

A metal ship? Bringing his hand to his chest, Aang felt a surge of pain run through him. Sitting up on the cot, he looks at his feet to relieve the feelings of disorientation that he got by sitting up so fast. "What happened?" Looking around him, he saw red. Red tapestries with the Fire Nation symbol, red silken sheets, a red carpet... "Oh no!" Getting up, he dashes to the metal door, expecting to find it locked, grabbing his glider on his way out. To his surprise, it slowly opens, making a horrid metallic sound. Peeking into the hallway, he saw no guards patrolling the halls. As he slowly steps into the corridor, trying to avoid making noise, he peeks around the door. Seeing nothing, he continues down the hall, staggering and leaning on his glider as if a crutch, he limps to the corner of the T intersection and peeks around it.

"Did you hear something?" Aang saw a pair of guards, a tall one and a short, almost child-sized one. Pressing himself back against the wall, he hoped that the guards hadn't seen him.

"He's awake!" _Uh oh; they saw me._ Taking a deep breath, he gripped his glider in both hands and sent an air blast down the adjoining corridor, then continued on his way down the hallway.

"Stop, wait!" Rang out the voice of the guard. _Why would the guards tell me to wait, not to stop?_ He continued limping down the hall until he came to the deck-level stairs, where he could see the stormy night sky at the top of the flight. Stumbling up the stairs, Aang slips on the last step and his glider slides across the deck, stopping between two tall, red armored men and...

"Momo?" As the lemur turns towards him and cheerfully leaps to him while chirping the two men look down at him – beneath their faceplates, it's Hakoda and Bato. Standing up as Momo curls around his neck to lick his face, he clutches his side as he looks around.

"Twinkle-Toes, that's got to be you!" He hears Toph say from his right, and, in turning, sees her and Katara looking out over the railing of the Fire Nation ship. Both wearing big red Fire Nation cloaks over their own clothes, they appeared to be the only ones not in Fire Nation uniforms. They both rush over to stand beside Hakoda, Bato and two soldiers in full Fire Nation armor (including faceplates), while the tall soldier from before reveals himself to be Pipsqueak.

"Aang, you're awake!" Katara smiles

"I feel like I'm dreaming…" Aang says, rubbing at his eyes.

Engulfing him in a hug, Katara tells him that "You're not dreaming. You're finally awake "Pulling away from him briefly, as the two masked soldiers approach him.

"Aang, good to see you back with the living, buddy" the one on the right says, grabbing his shoulders. Pulling back, he rests his hands on his hips as the other merely puts his hand on Aang's shoulder, and nods once.

"Sokka? And… Zuko?" Feeling faint, Aang half turns as his knees give and out and everything turns fuzzy, and then blackness overwhelms him.

--- --- --- oOo --- --- ---

Waking up, Aang sits on the ground as everyone looks on. Aang feels a weight on his shoulders as one of the masked soldiers slides a heavy red cloak onto him. "Why are we on a Fire Nation ship? Why are we dressed this way? And why am I the only one completely out of it?" As everyone begins to walk away, the same guard who put the cloak on Aang's shoulders pats Katara's shoulder as he walks by.

Giving the soldier a grateful smile, Katara raises her hand in front of Aang and tells him that "You need to take it easy, okay? You got hurt pretty bad". With a look of slight amusement, she also adds that "I like your hair".

With a shock, Aang realizes what she says. "I have hair? How long was I out?" he asks, reaching up and feeling the short growth on his head.

"A few weeks" she said, with a small grin on her face.

"Everything okay?" Asks Hakoda, walking over to his daughter.

With a grimace on her face, she looks away. "We're fine, Dad."

Offering his hand to Aang, he introduces himself. "I'm Hakoda, Katara and Sokka's father."

As Aang begins to reach over and take his hand, Katara sets her hand on his shoulder and, in an exasperated tone, tells her father: "He knows who you are. I just called you "Dad", didn't I?" Glaring over her shoulder, she gave him a dirty look.

Looking slightly hurt, Hakoda shakes it off with the briefest movement of his head. "I guess you're right."

Aang takes ahold of Katara's hand and removes it gently from his shoulder. "Nice to officially meet you, Chief Hakoda", he says, offering his hand.

Hakoda grabs Aang's elbow in a warrior's handshake and returns the greeting. "It's an honor to meet you, Avatar Aang."

Katara, still annoyed, snaps at her father. "Great, great. Now you guys have finally met so would you mind giving us a little privacy?"

Looking hurt once more, Hakoda merely replies "Of course" and walks away to go and pet Appa.

Giving Katara a questioning look, he asks: "Are you made at your dad or something? "

Giving Aang a weird look, she answers in a completely normal tone of voice. "What? Not at all, why would you say that? "

With a skeptical glance and an "Mmm hmmm", he shrugs and then a sudden lance of pain shoots through him, forcing him to grab his side.

Looking on him with concern, Katara makes a quick decision. "Maybe we should go upstairs. You sound like you need a healing session. Zuko, could you give a hand over here?" As Aang looks on, he sees the guard who had given Katara a passing pat on the shoulder head on over and lowers himself under one arm as Katara supports the other as they head on upstairs.

--- --- --- oOo --- --- ---

After helping them to the room where Katara was set up, Zuko and Katara set Aang down on the short platform and Zuko turns to leave when Katara calls out and gives Zuko one of her trademark grins. "Thanks for all your help, Zuko." He responds with a singular nod and leaves the room. With a sigh, she sets herself up behind Aang's back and pulls a pair of streams of water out of the jugs that she has prepared. Gloving her hands in the water, she softly places them on his back.

"Tell me where your pain feels most intense. "

Aang has in eyes closed n concentration, trying to feel where it hurts the most. At one point he stops her. "A little higher", he says, bracing himself for the pain. "Wow, you are definitely in the right area there…. I can feel something…"

"You're right: I can feel a lot of energy twisted up around there. Let me just see if I can... " she glides her hands around the scar and performs a subtle hand movement, while drawing her hands back, pulling the water with it.

Aang arches his back painfully and in a flash of memory, remembers going into the Avatar State then being hit by lightning. Those images I had when I woke up… they weren't a dream – they were memories… Then, in a flash of pure white light, he's brought back to his body, with his hands on his knees, recovering. "I went down! I didn't just get hurt, did I? …It was worse than that. I was gone. But you brought me back. "

"I just used the spirit water from the North Pole. I don't know what I did, exactly. But it healed you."

"You saved me." Aang said honestly, more than slightly in shock. _Did I die?_

Placing a hand on Aang's cheek, Katara smiled. "You need to rest."

--- --- --- oOo --- --- ---

Hours later, after had had the chance to rest, everyone reconvened on the deck outside. Everyone got into a circle around Sokka: Katara, Zuko, Toph, Hakoda, Bato and Toph. Sokka took a crate to sit on while Zuko and the Water Tribe men stood. They started eating their lunch of noodles as Sokka (who, along with Zuko, had removed their faceplates) recounted the past few weeks to Aang.

"After what happened in Ba Sing Se, we had to get you to safety. We flew back to Chameleon Bay, where we found my father and the other Water Tribe men. The Earth King decided he wanted to travel the world in disguise, so he set off alone. Well, not completely alone: he left with Bosco. Soon, the bay was overrun with Fire Nation ships. Rather than fight them all, with Zuko's help we managed to capture a single ship and made it our disguise. Since then, we've been traveling west. We crossed through The Serpent's Pass a few days ago. We've seen a few Fire Nation ships, but none so far have bothered us.

"So, what now? I mean, we clearly can't use the Earth King's Army to invade…" asked Aang.

Hakoda smiled and smacked a rolled up parchment in his hand. "We've been working on a modified version of the invasion plan."

Katara: shot an annoyed look at her father. "It's Sokka's invasion plan."

With a pained look in Katara's direction, Hakoda corrected himself. "Yes, Sokka's plan. We won't be able to mount a massive invasion without the Earth King's armies, but the solar eclipse will still leave the Fire Nation vulnerable for those eight minutes."

With an eager look Aang's way, Sokka continued outlining the plan. "So we're planning a smaller invasion. Just a ragtag team of our friends and allies from around the Earth Kingdom. We already ran into Pipsqueak and The Duke here.

Pipsqueak raises his noodle bowl in acknowledgement. "Good to see you again, Aang." Sitting on his shoulder, The Duke waves at them.

Continuing, Sokka dove right back in: "And the best part is, the eclipse isn't even our biggest advantage." Leaning towards Aang, he raises a hand to his mouth, as if telling him a secret, and he stage-whispers to him while suspiciously looking in all directions: "We have a secret. You! "

Aang looks shocked. "Me? "

Sokka looks at him with a big grin on his face. "Yep. Thanks to Sparky here's crazy sister the whole world thinks you're dead!" He stands up and places his arm triumphantly on Zuko's shoulder, who gives him a dirty look. "Isn't that great?" Asked Sokka.

"Sparky?" Aang gives Zuko an amused look, who responds with a snide sneer.

"Yep. I coined it, me being the official team-nicknamer and all" proclaimed Toph proudly, ignoring the dirty look that "Sparky" shot her, on account of her fact that she couldn't see it. All of a sudden, he grinned and took a step towards and ruffled her hair, to the amusement of the crew. "Can it, Sparky. Don't mess with the world's greatest earthbender!"

Everybody laughed at the pair, as Aang just looked on in shock. "Wha…. Huh?"

Katara realized that Aang hadn't really been around the past few weeks, and hadn't realized how well Zuko had grafted onto the group. "Aang, Ever since… Ba Sing Se, Zuko's really managed to bond in the group. In fact, he almost treats Toph as his little sister."

"Yeah, one who doesn't try to kill me…. Too often" Zuko said with a grin. At the last bit, Toph elbowed him in the side with a big smile on her face. "I'll also teach you firebending after you've recovered a bit more." Then, with a sobering look on his face, he quietly added "It's what Uncle would have wanted…"

"Zuko! What did I tell you? We'll get him out, don't worry." Katara walked over to Zuko's side, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder. Aang wondered what else he had missed. Their enemy was one of them now? Toph had warmed up to him? But most of all, he wondered why he hadn't been bothered by Katara being so… familiar with Zuko lately. Had he truly let her go to enter the Avatar State?

Aang looked shocked. "The world thinks I'm dead? How is that good news? That's terrible!"

Sokka waved his arms in a manner likely meant to be reassuring. "No, it's great. It means the Fire Nation won't be hunting us anymore. And even better, they won't expect you on The Day of Black Sun."

Not taking this as a comfort, Aang began pacing back and forth. "No, no, no, no, no. You have no idea. This is so messed up!" with a snort of indignation, he limped over to Appa and sat on one of his feet and began to stroke his face.

--- --- -- oOo --- --- ---

Not too much later, the horn of another ship blares. Everybody heads to the port side of their vessel to see what it was. Another Fire Nation ship was approaching, and fast.

Grabbing his glider, Aang yelled out:"I'll handle this. The Avatar is back!" he grabs his glider staff and slams it on the floor, opening its wings, but it causes him to flinch in pain and clutch his side. Trying to ignore the pains that the motion cause to shoot through him, Aang grabs the glider's wings and prepares to take off. Suddenly he's stopped by a strong hand on his shoulder. Expecting to see Sokka, he's surprised to see Zuko's scarred visage shaking its head.

"Aang, wait." Katara walked over to him, placing a hand on his other shoulder. "Remember, they don't know we're not Fire Nation."

Sweating heavily and gasping in pain, Aang reluctantly twirls his glider back into staff form as Zuko removes his hand and replaces his facemask, and Sokka follows suit.

"Everyone just stay calm. Let Bato, Zuko and I handle this." Putting on their helmets, the boys walk to the port as the girls crouch in the stairwell with Aang between them. Pipsqueak garbs The Duke and a tarp, and he throws both over Appa, easily covering the sky bison underneath the huge piece of material as Appa sits in a nearby cargo pit.

"Daaaad. Why does Zuko get to confront the Fire Nation and I don't?" Sokka complained, wondering why he had to hide while Zuko could stay out with the men.

"When you spend three years on a Fire Nation ship, then you can attempt to impersonate a proper Fire Nation soldier. Until then, protect Aang!" Zuko said harshly in a quiet voice, as the ship had nearly reached them. Strolling away and muttering under his breath, Sokka quickly joined the others in the stairwell.

Aang whispered to Sokka: I know how you feel. I hate not being able to do anything."

Toph snorted and softly told the boys that if all went well, then wouldn't need to.

The ship finally got close enough to dock, and as the two ships pulled up beside each other, the foreign ship dropped down a ramp between the two. An officer crossed over, followed by two guards. Looking at Bato, Hakoda and Zuko, he looks at them expectantly. Bato and Hakoda look at each other, momentarily confused, when Zuko hisses out "Bow!" and they all bow to the Fire Navy officer.

Giving them a satisfied smirk, the Fire Nation officer asked the tallest of the men, who he assumed was the commander of the vessel, his purpose. "Commander, why are you off course? All Western Fleet ships are supposed to be moving toward Ba Sing Se to support the occupation. "

Somewhat to the Officer's surprise, the middle-sized one answered. "Actually, we're from the Eastern Fleet. We have orders to deliver some cargo. "

With a roll of his eyes, the Fire Nation officer sighed. "Ah, Eastern Fleet. Well, nice of Admiral Chan to let us know he was sending one of his ships our way."

Zuko quickly added:"I am sure Admiral Chan meant no disrespect, sir."

Exasperated, the Fire Nation officer threw up his hands. "I mean, how hard is it to write a quick note and send a hawk our way?"

With a quick glance at Zuko, who nodded to confirm, Hakoda answered. "Next time, we'll send two hawks to be sure you get the message."

With a bow, the Fire Nations turned and walked back towards their own ship. When they were halfway across, one of the soldiers leaned towards the officer and whispered: "Sir, Admiral Chan has been on leave for the past two months at Ember Island."

Looking shocked, the Fire Nation officer leaned towards the soldier. "What? Are you sure? Why doesn't anyone ever tell me anything? Something's not right. They should've known that. I think this is a captured ship. Just stay quiet until we're safely across the ramp. Then we'll sink this ship!"

Even though they had whispered, they hadn't counted on the fact that the captured ship was carrying Toph Bei Fong, who, in addition to her incredible earthbending, had incredible hearing to match. Climbing out of the stairwell, she pointed at the enemy and yelled: "They know!" She then bends to one knee, and, grabbing hold of the raw steel, twists a handhold from it. A line of disruption emanates from her hand and it travels straight from her hand to the ramp, knocking the three soldiers off of the ramp as it tumbles down into the water between the two ships.

Zuko jumps in front of the Water Tribe men and shoots a sheet of horizontal flame across the deck of the opposing ship, buying Katara some time as she slowly raised a small mountain of water between the two ships, increasing the distance between them as fast as possible. Twirling in a circle, her braid whips around her body as she closes the circle and thrusts her arms towards the enemy vessel, pushing it back and collapsing her mountain. The captured ship then puts its engines on full and begins to speed away as fast as possible. The soldiers from the other ship throw down rope ladders to rescue the fallen crew, which they all grab and begin the climb up the ladders.

A/N: and, I'm gonna stop here, because I am DEAD tired. Expect part 2 u in less than 12 hours, but for now…. Adios.


	4. The Awakening, Part II

A/N: And here's the final part of the episode – enjoy!

**BOOK 3: FIRE**  
CHAPTER ONE: THE AWAKENING, PART II

They hadn't gotten much of a lead when the Fire Nation ship started after them and began throwing flaming rocks at them from their catapults. After the first few hit the water, Toph stomped over to the rear of the ship and took up a solid stance.

"Load the Toph!" she yelled at Pipsqueak, who brought a big stone Earth Kingdom coin from a pile and laid it in front of her. With a one-two step and a stomp, she raised the coin and shot it at the trailing ship. With remarkable accuracy for a blind earthbender, it hits one of the enemy's catapults head on and destroys it. As Pipsqueak tosses another coin in front of her and she fires it, the other ship take a moment to launch another fireball, but they collide in midair.

During all this, Sokka and Aang are hiding, safe inside the bridge of the ship, both hunkering down on either side of the doorway to outside. Aang makes a move to dash outside to help, but Sokka grabs his shoulders and slowly shakes his head, lightly shoving Aang back into his hiding spot. Aang, annoyed with the fact that he can't help, bangs his head against his glider a few times in frustration.

On the deck outside, the Fire Nation has finally closed to within ballista range. With an audible twang a huge chained steel bolt is fired at the captured ship, sinking into its hull. As the chain is pulled taunt by the other ship reeling it back in, it tears a huge hole in the side of the vessel. Katara rushes over to above the leak and pushes down a breath of intensely cold air, causing a path of ice to travel down the hull and seal the breach, at least temporarily. Turning to Zuko and her father standing nearby, she yells out at them. "I'm going to give us some cover!" With a downward thrust of her arm, she formed a miniature whirlpool directly off the port bow and a plume of mist rose from it, concealing everything within it.

Not ten seconds later, Zuko, Toph, The Duke and the two Water Tribe men were looking over the deck when a flaming boulder broke through the mist and headed straight for the deck. As they all threw themselves out of the way (with The Duke grabbing Toph), the boulder collided with their supply of Earth coins and the resulting explosion threw Pipsqueak across the deck.

Watching the smoke billow by, Aang finally got flustered. "I can't just stand by and do nothing! " he then rushes outside, dodging Sokka's extended hands.

"Aang! No! "Sokka yelled in vain, missing his shoulder. But he did manage to snag the end of Aang's glider. Bringing him in closer, he moved his hand farther up the staff. "You're still hurt, and you have to stay secret. Just let us handle this. "

Walking back towards the bridge, Aang moodily grabs his staff from Sokka's grip. "Fine!"

Sokka is rocked by a nearby explosion, and, as the the two ships leave Katara's cover of mist, the Fire Nation ship continues to rain fire down on it from its remaining catapults. One of the boulders had a glancing hit on one of the onboard motors, and Katara bent a large mass of water onto it as Zuko tried to bend the fire off and onto the water. With disturbed look, Katara asked Zuko where he learnt that.

"Did you think that I was only admiring you whenever I watched you practice? Uncle always told me to incorporate as many different techniques into my style as possible!" He allowed himself a small smile as Katara's look of confusion quickly spread into a grin.

"Stop flirting, you two!" Toph yelled at them "Sokka, how we doing?"

"Things couldn't get much worse." Sokka said with a grimace. All of a sudden, a huge spray of water appeared behind Sokka as the infamous Serpent of the Serpent's Pass made it's presence known. Coiling its muscular body over the water, it prepared to strike at the Water Tribe ship. "The Universe just loves proving me wrong, doesn't it?"

"That's 'cause you make it so easy, Snoozles!" Toph yelled, leaning slightly onto The Duke for support on the rocking deck.

The next volley of Fire Nation attacks came at them, but out of the blue one of the projectiles flew high and smacked the serpent right into the side of its mask, burning it. With a fierce glare at Sokka, the serpent dives back under the water. The mystery of why it left was soon revealed as it burst from the sea spray just off the starboard bow of the pursuing vessel and proceeded to wrap itself around the vessel. As Sokka, Pipsqueak and Zuko ran to the railing, the monster finished wrapping around it and began to roar and hiss at the Fire Navy crew. After a moment of stunned silence, Sokka gave the monster a quick bow and, with a huge grin on his face; "Thank you, The Universe". Their ship sailed away from the doomed Fire Navy one as they continued on their way to the Fire Nation.

--- --- --- oOo --- --- ---

Hours later, Aang is resting on his bed as they slowly dock at a small merchant port in the Fire Nation. As he's sitting there, doing nothing, his door creaks open to reveal his friends and Zuko as they step into his room.

With a smile on her face, Toph tells Aang their plan. "Hey, Aang, we're going into town to find some dinner."

With a grimace, his own stomach growls and e grabs at it in an attempt to quiet it. "Well, I am pretty hungry. Maybe dinner's a good idea."

Looking at Zuko, Sokka asks him for a headband. With a knowing smile, Zuko reaches into a pocket and grabs a thick red headband and hands it to Sokka. Sokka then gives it to Aang; "Here, tie this around your head. It'll cover your arrow."

With a shocked and angry look on his face, Aang slaps aside Sokka's hands. "I'm not going out if I can't wear my arrow proudly." He then turns and lies down on his bed, back facing the door and his friends.

Sokka tries to plead with Aang, begging him to listen. "Aang, come on: be practical."

Concerned, Katara puts a hand on Sokka's shoulder. "You guys go ahead without us. We'll catch up with you." With that, Sokka and Toph leave the room. Zuko proceeds to follow, but before he steps out, he raises his eyebrow at her.

"You sure? I mean we wouldn't mind waiting for a bit…." He look slightly awkward, and Katara, amused, smiles at him.

"Yes, _Prince_ Zuko, I'm sure. Now go – with Sokka's appetite, he won't wait for you to catch up. Nodding, Zuko pulled up his hood to disguise his scar and he hurried off down the corridor after Sokka and Toph.

With the smile quikly dropping from her face, Katara sits on Aang's bed and places a hand on his shoulder. "I think I understand why being a secret bothers you so much. You don't want people to think you failed."

Moodily, Aang responded to her prompt. "You're right, I don't. But the problem is, I _did_ fail."

Katara, slightly annoyed, tried to comfort him: "Aang, that's not true."

Sitting up, Aang began to raise his voice slightly. "It is true. I was in Ba Sing Se. I was there, but I lost." Getting off his bed, he walked over to his glider as he kept his back turned towards her. "And now, the Earth Kingdom has fallen for good." His head fell slightly at the weight of his words.

Following his lead, Katara also got up off his bed. "Remember, there's still an invasion plan."

Aang angrily whirled and faced her. "And I hate the invasion plan, too! I don't want you or anyone else risking your lives to fix my mistakes." Ripping the Fire Nation tapestry from above his bed, he throws it onto the ground in a fit of pique and knocks over his glider. "I've always known that I would have to face the Fire Lord, but now, I know I need to do it alone."

Walking over to his side of the bed, Katara couldn't help but feel her maternal instincts rise in her heart. "Aang…"

Stopping her with a hand before she got too close, Aang spoke out:" Katara, please. Just go. Please."

As Katara sadly walks to the door, she stops on the threshold of the room, right at the door. Leaning on it for a second, she tries to appeal to him one last time. "Is there anything you need?"

Closing his eyes and looking at the floor, Aang answers the only way he know how. "I need to redeem myself. I need my honor back."

--- --- --- oOo --- --- ---

An hour or two later, Katara softly hums to herself as she carries a tray holding a bowl of rice and a small dish of vegetables. Entering the room, she calls out: "I brought you some food." Looking around the small room, it's deserted, and Aang's glider is nowhere in sight. Her senses freeze up. "Oh no" she says as the tray drops from her nerveless fingers. She dashes out of the room.

--- --- --- oOo --- --- ---

As Katara runs out onto the deck, she sees Zuko talking with her dad and Bato. Seeing tears in her eyes, Bato lays a hand on Zuko's shoulders and pulls him back.

"We'll leave you two alone for a bit" With a concerned look her way, Zuko agrees with a slow nod, not wanting to leave Katara in such a state. _Why does it bother me so much that she's crying? _Zuko thinks to himself.

As him and Bato walk away down the deck, Katara walks up to her father.

"What's wrong Katara?" Hakoda asked, not liking the tears in her eyes anymore than Zuko.

Katara raised her tear filled eyes to meet her father's: "He left."

With a look of mild confusion on his face, he looked at his daughter: "What? What do you mean?"

Frustrated, Katara began ranting. "Aang. He just took his glider and disappeared. He has this ridiculous notion that he has to save the world alone. That it's all his responsibility."

After a slight hesitation, he answered: "Maybe that's his way of being brave."

Now angry at her father's response, she began nearly yelling at him. "It's not brave. It's selfish and stupid. We could be helping him. And I know the world needs him, but doesn't he know how much that we need him too? How could he just leave us behind?"

After a moment's consideration of what she said, Hakoda opened his mouth. "You're talking about me too, aren't you?"

Katara's tears redoubled as more salty tears traced their way down her face. "How could you leave us, Dad? I mean, I know we had Gran Gran, and she loved us, but...but we were just so lost without you." Turning away from him, she brings her hands to her eyes and sobs into the heels of her hands. Unexpectedly, Hakoda put s a firm hand on her shoulder and turns her towards him.

"I'm so sorry, Katara" He says, looking into her eyes. With only a second's hesitation, she throws herself into his arms and sobs onto his breastplate as he holds her close.

Hakoda can barely make out what she's saying between the sobs. "I understand why you left. I really do, and I know that you had to go, so why do I still feel this way? I was so sad and angry, and hurt."

Holding her tighter for a second, Hakoda tried to answer her. "I love you more than anything. You and your brother are my entire world. I thought about you every day I was gone, and every night when I went to sleep. I would lay awake missing you so much, it would ache."He closed his eyes and laid his head atop that of his daughters'.

--- --- --- oOo --- --- ---

"Okay, men and women, we have a problem." Hakoda walked into the bridge, where he had assembled everyone. "Aang is missing, and it's our job to find him"

"What? Where could he have gone?" Sokka asked, stroking Momo like a cat owl.

"We don't know that yet, but Katara thinks that he may have gone after the Fire Lord alone." Hakoda said in a worried tone of voice.

"But that's just stupid!" Cried Toph "Aren't we supposed to train him, or something? I mean, he hasn't even started learning firebending from Sparky, yet."

"Going up against the Fire Lord in his condition is suicidal! I know that better than anyone. I've seen his power, and right now, Aang is no match for him. I mean, the Avatar can barely stand without being in pain!" Zuko said, now getting worried "I mean, how could he be so stupid?"

"Exactly, Zuko. And Toph, too, of course. But Aang seems to think that by doing this, he's being brave." Katara said, thankful that people were seeing things her way.

"Brave? No, he's just being stupid! He's being an ignorant child!" Zuko was really ranting now.

Sokka came up to him and laid a hand on his shoulder. "Zuko, I know that you're worried. We all are. But we have to keep faith that we'll find him in one piece."

With a resigned sigh, Zuko nodded and agreed with Sokka, making the other warrior give him a tight smile.

"Alright, then, men, here's the plan." Hakoda started, bring attention to himself and a rather large map spread out on a table in the room. "Here we are" he indicated, pointing at a small iron ingot shaped roughly like a ship. "you kids should take Appa and search every island in a 30 mile radius. That means…" Hakoda trailed off and used a piece of string to figure out which islands were within the specified radius. "So you'll be checking out these three islands here: Half Moon Island, Iron Island and New Moon Island. I'd suggest leaving New Moon Island for last, because it's going the opposite direction from the Fire Nation capital. If you can't find him on any of those three islands, come back and I'll hopefully have a new battle plan drawn up. Now move out!"

The Gaang rushed out to get Appa and prepared to get flying. Zuko grabbed an extra cloak as the others made sure that Appa was ready to go. Mounting up, Zuko looked on with some trepidation at the storm brewing on the horizon, but shrugged it off when Katara called him over. Soon enough they were on their way, with Sokka directing Appa, Toph holding on tightly to Zuko as he looked over Appa's right and Katara looking over the beast's left, with Momo curled up in her lap. As they made their way to the closest island, Half Moon Island, they couldn't see anything on its blasted shores. As they came closer, Zuko yelled at them to make him heard over the wind: "In this area of the Fire Nation, a lot of the islands are small, and volcanically formed. There's little to no life on these islands, so the worry of Aang being found by anyone other than is slim to none! It also means that we should have no trouble spotting him if he is on this island!"

Nodding in acknowledgment, Sokka took Appa a bit lower. After a full circuit of the island, Sokka turned back to the others. "See anything?"

When they both shook their heads, he nodded and commanded Appa to head to the next island – Iron Island. As they flew on in silence, Toph snuggled up closer to Zuko. As Katara gave her a slightly odd look and a drawn out "Toph?...." Toph glared in her general direction and told her off. "What do you want, Sugar Queen? It's cold with the wind and all up here, and Sparky's warm." With a hesitant hand, Katara reaches over to touch Zuko, but she holds her hand back and decides against it.

"Not quite that comfortable with him yet" she thought to herself, when an inner voice that sounded a lot like Toph cackled wickedly in her ear.

_But you want to be….._ Blushing profusely, Katara quickly turned out towards the open sky before anyone saw her.

"Well, not that I don't but… it's Zuko! I can't imagine a relationship with him…."

_Think about it…. He's a Prince, come to take you back his palace…. And have you SEEN him firebend without his shirt? I mean come on girl, he is ripped!_

"Okay I won't deny that he is, but- wait, what am I saying? Am I seriously saying that the Prince of the Fire Nation is hot?

_Well, he IS rather fine, wouldn't you say?_

"Just shut up you" she scolded the voice in her head. "No more thinking about…. _that_ in relation to Zuko. Even though I've got to know him, and he's not a bad guy, surely he doesn't think of me like that… does he? And even if he did, we just have him here long enough to train Aang and rescue his uncle, then he'd head off to be Fire Lord.

_You could join him in the Fire Nation…. I'd bet that he wouldn't refuse you…._

"Enough of these…. Ridiculous thoughts. I refuse to entertain them." Katara said to her "Inner Toph", although perhaps, she admitted to herself, that the brooding Fire Prince wasn't THAT bad looking….

--- --- --- oOo --- --- ---

As they approached Iron Island from the sea, Zuko thought that he spotted something orange on the southern side of the island. "Sokka! Fly lower! I think that I see him!"

Katara looked on in hope, as she caught sight of the orange flash. She remembered that Aang was still wearing his orange monk pants the last they saw him, and Zuko said that these islands were uninhabited, so…. With a start, Momo leapt out of her lap and flew down towards Aang's body as Sokka landed Appa as close as he could.

Aang awoke to something rough and damp on his face. Opening his eyes, he sees a big, friendly lemur face right in front of him. As he groans, Momo leaps off of him and Aang sits up. From not too far away he hears a familiar voice.

"You're ok!" Aang is quickly engulfed in a hug by the motherly waterbender, and she is soon joined by all the others, except Zuko who stays back by Appa, who landed not too far away. After a moment of family togetherness, Aang breaks away from the throng of limbs

"I have so much to do…" Aang trails off as he thinks on the obstacles ahead.

With a warm smile, Katara comforted him. "I know, but you'll have our help."

Toph gave him a friendly punch in the arm. "You didn't think you could get out of training just by coming to the Fire Nation, did you? When I'm done with ya, Sparky here gets a shot at you. We got you a firebending teacher"

With a sad look on his face, Aang asked about the invasion.

Sokka gave him a grin. "Don't worry about it. We'll join up with my dad and the invasion force on the day of the eclipse."

Just then, something hit Toph n the back. "Hey, what's…" she picks it up and shows it to everyone – it's Aang's burnt and broken glider. "Oh…. It's your glider." Handing it to him, they all join Zuko in standing.

"That's okay. If someone saw it, it would give away my identity. It's better for now that no one knows I'm alive." Turning around, Aang performs a minor airbending trick and leaps up the volcano. Looking out with a solemn look on his face, he spins his glider above his head and plunges it into the relatively soft volcanic rock bottom first. He jumps back down with his friends and they all get on Appa and fly away. As the island disappears into the horizon, the glider slowly burns up until nothing remains but ashes.

--- --- --- oOo --- --- ---

A/N: Aaaaaand that's it. That turned out longer than expected. Did it bother anyone else how Aang had to let go of Katara to enter the Avatar State, yet right after that he suddenly goes back to pining for her as soon as he wakes up? I mean, come ON. HE LET HER GO. I'll try to reflect that. No, even though Toph IS indeed glomping Zuko, this'll be a Toko FRIENDSHIP fic. No romance intended there. The reason Zuko hung back at the group hug is because although he's comfortable around the rest of the Gaang, he's not really all that comfy 'round Aang. I intend on maybe doing a few one-shots where Zuko meets important people (like the Gaang, Hakoda, the Earth Kingdom allies, etc…). Anywyas, don't ask me to pimp your fics, but here's a few that I really recommend reading because of their pure awesomness:

1) Warmth, by Armor of the Gods: Awesome fic, where it's cold in the WAT, and Katara finds that Zuko's always warm… but can it override her hatred of him?

2) Nighttime Sparring/Warrior's Connection, by SpralHax: Actually a pair of Zuki (Zuko/Suki) fics, they're actually pretty awesome. They bond over sword-fighting and the fact that they're both "outsiders" from the gaang.

3)What I Don't Like about You, by Trombe: Possibly one of the Best Zutaras out there, this fic is an AU past the WAT, I believe, with a decidedly heavier Zutara focus (plus, Katara sneaks away with Sokka and Zuko to the Boiling Rock! Oh no!)

Anywyas, until next time.


	5. The Painted Lady, Part I

A/N: I have no excuses for how late this is…. Nor its lack of quality. All I can say is, it's here now. I kinda skipped over The Headband (Book 3, Episode 2) for two reasons: The first being, I hate that episode for no explicable reason. No reason at all. The second being, of course, if Zuko WAS there when they stole the clothes, he would have done SOMETHING to stop the Home Guard from dragging him off to school. Anyways, onto Chapter three – the Painted Lady.

**BOOK 3: FIRE**  
CHAPTER THREE: THE PAINTED LADY, PART I

Filth. That's the only way to describe what Appa was currently wading through, with Team Avatar on his back. Gooey, sticky, smelly, goop. Zuko couldn't believe that the Avatar was frolicking through it, along with his flying pet. Sokka was trying to fish off of the back of the saddle, and the girls were staring off into space. They had gotten to the Fire Nation proper a few days beforehand by concealing Appa in a waterbended created "cloud". After Sokka had tried to convince them that the toucan-puffins were Fire Nation spies and Zuko had smacked him in the back of the head (much to Toph and Katara's amusement), they had all stolen Fire Nation clothes (except Zuko, who had kept his military clothes) and had ventured into the a nearby city.

Katara had had to remove her mother's necklace, it clearly marking her as Water Tribe, but Zuko had stealthily bought her a choker with a golden pendant on it, closely matching her mother's for size and weight. He had snuck it into her bag when she wasn't looking, and hadn't admitted that he was the one to put it there (although Toph HAD thrown him a look, and hadn't left him alone since), even when she had questioned him. He had also bought a headband for Toph, and a topknot clasp for Sokka to help them "blend in". Aang had found a headband with his outfit, and along with his hair, covered him up enough to conceal his arrows.

Little did they know that the outfit that Aang had picked out was a school uniform. Only the timely intervention of Zuko, standing outside the meat shop as Sokka pulled Toph and Katara in, prevented the Home Guard from pulling Aang into a Fire Nation school. The Home Guard, recognizing Zuko's outfit as the off-duty outfit of a Navy Lieutenant, immediately released Aang into his charge. For once, Zuko was glad of his low profile in the Fire Nation. Although there were wanted posters of him in the Earth Kingdoms, there was no such thing here. Which lead them to here – after resupplying, they had taken off once again towards the Fire Nation capitol.

"Momo!" Zuko was jerked out of his musings by the Avatar's inanely cheery voice coming from over Appa's side. Aang pokes his head out of the water barely long to yell his... pet's name before plunging back in quicker than a eel-hound. After a few more minutes of playing hide-and-seek with Momo, the lemur finally catches on and flies onto Aang's head. As Momo's filth encrusted tail waves in front of the Avatar's eyes, he finally seems to realise what he's swimming in. With a look of disgust on his face, he airbends himself onto Appa's back. "Uh.... guys? I think that this river's polluted." With a huff of air, he blasts all of the goop off of him.... and onto everybody else, who's looking at him in various levels of disgust. With a sheepish look on his face, Aang slams his staff onto Appa's back, cleaning everybody else off...while leaving them in a state of complete disarray. After a few seconds to clean themselves up, Sokka finally opens his mouth.

"Well, that explains why I can't catch a fish around here. Because normally my fishing skills are…off the hook! Get it ? Like a fishing hook!" He looks around wildly with a slightly crazed look on his face, holding the hook next to his face, pointing at it wildly. After getting flat looks from everybody, and a snort of disgust from Zuko, his face falls. That's when Toph speaks.

"Too bad your skills aren't more on the hook". At this, everybody (save Sokka) laughs. Even Zuko can't stifle his smile, and affectionately tussles Toph's hair a bit. Scowling, Sokka puts his fishing rod away and sits by his pack.

"It looks like we'll need to go somewhere else to get food. " At these words, a long paper scroll unrolls in front of her from Sokka's direction "Assuming that'll fit into Sokka's master schedule, of course"

Looking at his master plan, Sokka sticks out his tongue as he contemplates what she's asking. "Hm…it's doable. But that means only two potty breaks today!" As Zuko rolls his eyes, Sokka turns on him and asks "Zuko, do you know any villages around here that might do the trick?"

With a sheepish grin, Zuko told him that he wasn't really familiar with this part of the Fire Nation. The closer that they got to the Imperial Capital, though, the more help that he'd be. As they turn around the next bend, Aang pipes up.

"Hey, maybe we can get food there" Just a few more kilometres downstream is a floating village in the river where it widens out, though there is a dark cloud farther downstream than that.

A little later, after the Gaang had hidden Appa and Momo in a nearby clearing, they came to a cliff overlooking the small village.

"There it is... the mystery village." Zuko said with a sigh, as the others finished climbing up the ridge.

"I TOLD you that it wasn't this way, but does anyone ever listen to Sokka? Noooo...." Sokka trailed off as he reached the top of the cliff and saw it.

"I STILL don't see anything, Snoozles. Where is this village?" Toph had actually agreed with Sokka for once, claiming that she couldn't sense a village in direction for at least a few miles.

"It's in the middle of the river!" Sokka was thrilled. Who knew what kind of crazy inventions he could find here. The last Fire Nation town he was in, they had meat on sticks. MEAT. ON STICKS. If this was what the entire Fire Nation was like, he could really grow to like it here. A voice from the bottom of the cliff snapped him out of his daydream.

"Sure is!" The entire group looked down to see a man in a skiff floating in the water. "My name's Dock. Mind if I ask who you are?"

"We're, uhh... from one of the Earth Kingdom colonies." Katara quickly managed to stammer out, wincing at how fake the lie sounded, even to her ears. Dock apparently didn't notice, or, more likely, plain didn't care about the lie.

"Wow…colonials! Come on down here; I'll give you a ride into town."

Team Avatar climbed down the ridge, and after Zuko gave Toph a hand into the boat, proceeded to let the man jabber on endlessly as he brought them towards town. Not too long after they started, Katara clambered up to the front of the skiff.

"Why do you guys live on the river ?" she asked Dock, genuinely curious. From what she had seen, most Fire Nation citizens preferred to live in big houses of stone, rather than in wooden shacks (especially considering that some of them must be _firebenders_) on the river.

"Because we're a fishing town... or, at least that's how it was before the factory moved in." Team Avatar turned to where Dock pointed with his paddle and saw the enormous factory spewing black smoke into the air. "Army makes their metal there. Moved in a few years ago and started gunking up our river. Now our little village is struggling to survive." As he finishes his short tale, he docks and ties up his boat. They bid him farewell as Zuko re-secures his hood and Aang waves goodbye cheerfully.

"Thanks for the ride, Mr. Dock!"

As the kids walk around the small town, they notice how poverty-stricken and stagnant the town is. People laying around, with little or nothing to do. Even the children weren't running around playing.

"Look at this place. It's so sad. We have to do something to help." Katara said as she looked on, her motherly nature shining through. Zuko laid a hand on her shoulder and slowly shook his head as Sokka burst in.

"No, we can't waste our time here! We have a bigger mission that we need to stay focused on. These people are on their own!" He threw up his hands and continued to walk away from her and Zuko, back towards Toph, who was hanging off Aang. Aang noticed that Zuko was silently offering strength to Katara, and that she had subconsciously placed her hand on top of Zuko's. He felt a pang of jealousy running through him. _But I thought that I had let her go.... hadn't I?_

"These people are starving, but you turn your back on them ! How can you be so cold and heartless ?" Katara threw Zuko's hand off her shoulder as she stalked towards Sokka, fury burning in her cerulean eyes. Throwing up in hands in defence, Sokka tried to explain to her.

"I'm not turning my back, I'm just being realistic! We can't go around helping every rinky-dink town we wander into. We'll be helping them all by taking out the Fire Lord!" Sokka proudly smiled, thinking that he had perfectly justified his point. That is, until he felt Zuko's hand on the back of his head and Toph's dirty little hand slammed over his mouth.

"Hey, loudmouth! Maybe we should be a little quieter when we talk about taking out the Fire Lord, seeing how we're, I don't know, in the _Fire Nation_?"

Chastened, Sokka started talking a little quieter. "Come on, Katara, be reasonable about this. You know our mission has to come first."

Reluctantly, Katara agreed with him. "I guess so...."

"Let's just get what we need and go." Aang, for once, was the voice of reason within the group as he suggested their next course of action. Nobody saw the brief look of pain and shame in Zuko's eyes at Sokka's words before a fierce fire flared into life in his eyes.

They approach the counter of an outdoor market stall, staffed, to all appearances, by the same aged fisherman who gave them a lift into town. Surprised, Sokka blurted out the first thing that came to his head.

"Hey, Dock. You work here too?"

"I'm not Dock, I'm Shu. Dock's my brother."

The kids all look at each other, asking the same question. What in the world?

"But we just saw you" Aang began "You're even wearing the same clothes. The only difference is your hat." With a laugh that carries the slight edge of mild insanity, "Shu" laughed off their concerns.

"Dock works on the docks, that's why they call him "Dock", and I work in the shop, that's why they call me "Shu"."

"I don't get it." Aang has a confused look on his face, while Zuko slaps his palm against his forehead.

"Me neither." Dock laughs, and pulls out a crate filled with rancid grey seafood. "What can I getcha? Hey, I'll even give you a special deal: If you buy three fish, I'll throw in a clam for free."

Presented with the food, the Gaang is instantly revolted, but they did need the food...

"We'll just take the fish. Mind telling your _brother _we need a ride back to shore?" Sokka all but put up his fingers when he said the word "brother", but the man clearly didn't hear the tone of his voice. After wrapping up the fish surprisingly quickly, he ducks beneath the counter, only to reappear a heartbeat later wearing his "Dock" hat, a squat red hat instead of his taller, white "Shu" hat.

" Hello again, colonials. My brother says you need a lift." Zuko rolls his eyes as they turn to follow him, and Aang smiles. He's beginning to like this old man – he reminds him of Bumi.

"Can you spare some food , miss?" A young boy runs up to Katara, easily identifying her as the "mother" of the group. With a pitying look on her face, Katara gives him one of their fish.

"I wish I could spare more, I'm sorry." She watches sadly as he runs off to a house not too far away, giving the fish to an older woman, likely his mother.

"Katara! Hurry up!" Sokka yells, seeing her look sadly into the distance. They're already all on the boat, waiting for her. Only Zuko saw her give the fish away, and smiles a small, secret smile.

--- --- --- oOo --- --- ---

Back at the campground with Appa and Momo, Katara, Toph and Zuko are trying to get the pollution out of the water through a combination of boiling and pulling the water away from the pollution. Sokka sits down on a nearby stool that had been earthbent by Aang before he started playing with Momo.

"Our detour into town today has completely thrown us off our schedule. It's gonna take some serious finagling to get us back on track." Twirling his boomerang, he tries to reschedule things in his head before he changes the "official" itinerary.

Finally finishing her water purification ritual, she sarcastically responds to Sokka: "Finagle away, O schedule master."

Taking Toph seriously, Sokka continues on: "Well, for starters, it looks like we'll need to wake up forty-three minutes earlier every day."

Shooting her brother a deadpan look, Katara stares at him. "Forty-three minutes . Not forty, not forty five, _forty three_ minutes."

Gesturing at his plan, Sokka tries to show them what he means. "Look, we only have a few weeks to get to the Fire Lord in time for the invasion and the eclipse – which, by the way, only lasts for eight minutes. And we just lost a whole day. So if we want to make up the time and stay on schedule, we have to wake up early!"

Flopping back onto the ground, Toph steadfastly refused to get up early. "Well, I'm not waking up early."

With a triumphant smirk on his face, Sokka gave them his alternative, knowing that they wouldn't go for it. "Or we could just cut out all of our eating breaks."

There was the predicted outrage. As everybody refused, Zuko finally spoke up.

"Come on, Sokka, we both know that you wouldn't last 2 hours like that"

With a grimace, Sokka ceded the point to Zuko. "True... a warrior's got to keep up his strength." After another minute of deliberation, he snapped his fingers. "I got it, how's this: From now on, we'll take food breaks and potty breaks at the _same time_.

There was a collective sigh of distaste from the Team.

"Hey, it might be gross, but it's efficient. Either way, we have to leave here first thing tomorrow morning. Okay?" As everybody grumbled in disagreement but eventual acceptance, Katara stayed up, looking out towards the town. Little did she know that she wasn't the only one awake – the reflection of the flickering fire was caught in amber-coloured eyes as they watched her suspiciously.

--- --- --- oOo --- --- ---

The next morning, the Gaang is roused by the groaning of the great sky-bison. As they wipe the sleep from their eyes, they see Katara smoothing her water-gloved hands over Appa. Curious, Aang launches himself towards Appa with a minor feat of airbending.

"What's the matter, Katara? Everything okay?"

"I think Appa's sick." She says, seemingly concerned.

Sokka bolts out of his bedroll completely awake. "What? Appa's sick? That's awful!"

With more than a tinge of surprise, Toph stares at Sokka in surprise. "Wow, Sokka, I didn't realize you cared so much."

"Of course I care. I might as well just throw our schedule away now." He says, pantomiming throwing away his scroll. As the rest of the gaang glares at him, he quickly realises what he said and how bad it sounds and rushes to Appa's side, hugging his furry head. "And I'm concerned because my big, furry friend doesn't feel well."

"He must have gotten sick from being in the polluted water yesterday." Toph theorised, rubbing her chin as she thought.

Just then, Zuko came over from around the cliff where he had been practicing cold katas. Shirtless and sweaty, he saw everyone clustered around Appa.

Katara briefly looked panicked before she stealthily took a deep breath and caught him up on what he had missed.

"He doesn't look sick. You okay, buddy" Aang said, airbending himself up onto Appa's head to rub his arrow. Sliding down, he pulls open the bison's mouth and almost drops the jaw in surprise. "His tongue is purple! That can't be good. Katara, can you heal him , right?"

Looking at the tongue, even prodding it once or twice, she reluctantly looks back at Aang with a sad look on her face. "It looks like he needs some medicine. Maybe we can find the right herbs in town." As she looks around at the Gaang, she notices Zuko giving her a suspicious look. Smiling in what she hopes to be a disarming way, she notices his cheeks reddening slightly as he turns away_. Does... does ZUKO have a crush on me?_

--- --- --- oOo --- --- ---

Back at the village, it's almost as if a miracle has occurred. The people are livelier, and the children are playing in the "streets". There's even a man pole-vaulting from house to house in the channels.

"Looking" around, Toph hears all the happy chatter and laughter. "Is it just me, or does this place seem... different to you guys?"

"Yeah, are the people…happier ?" Aang said, looking around.

Just then, the little boy from the previous day, the one that Katara had given a fish to, runs by bouncing a ball up and down. As the kids walk up to "Shu's" market stall, even Zuko seems less sulky. They soon arrive at the market stand and Sokka yells out a greeting.

"Hey, Xu, what's going on with everyone today ? Why's everybody so... happy?"

With a smile, Dock told him. "Ah, something amazing happened last night. Food was delivered to our village by a mysterious and wonderful person…the Painted Lady."

"The Painted... who now?" Katara looked momentarily confused.

"The Painted Lady." Shu takes a wooden statuette out from underneath the counter and plunks it down onto it. It's a small feminine figure, covered in heavy draperies and extensive facial tattooing with a wide brimmed hat covered in a veil. "She's part of our town's lore. They say she's a river spirit who watches over our town in times of need. I always thought she was just a legend. Until now."

Nodding his head, Zuko agreed. "In my lessons with Uncle, I learned about the common spirits of the Fire Nation: The Painted Lady is indeed the Patron spirit of Jang Hui"

Taking this as evidence, Sokka declared: "See, we don't need to help these people, they already have someone to help them. Look, Shu, all we need is medicine for our sick friend."

With a grimace, Dock put his hands to his sides. "Sorry, colonials, but all the medicine we have goes to the factory. That's why there's so many sick people in our village."

"Looks like we need to stay another night so Appa can rest." Katara looked strange as she said that, Zuko noticed, almost... eager.

Exasperated, Sokka sighed in defeat. I guess that you're right. You got any more food to sell , Shu?"

With a lop-sided grin, Shu holds up two fishes, although Aang thought that they barely deserved to be called that. "Would you like the one-headed fish, or the two-headed fish ?" Shu asked in all honesty.

Thinking for a second, Sokka's face split into a wide grin as he cried out his answer. "Two-headed!"Spinning around holding it out, he noticed the disgusted looks on everyone's faces. "What? You get more for your money that way. "

--- --- --- oOo --- --- ---

Later that night, long after Team Avatar had left, a cloth draped figure emerges from the nighttime fog on the lake. A drunken man mumbles "The Painted Lady?...." before dropping into a drink-induced slumber. Having froze at the man's words, the spirit continues on once she hears that the man has started snoring. Stepping into a residence, she sees several people sleeping on the ground. Bending over each of them in turn, a blue light is seen glowing from each of the patients briefly before she moves onto the next one. Her final patient is the mother of the boy that Team Avatar had given a fish to a couple days previous. As she glides over, she notices the boy sleeping next to his mother. After healing the woman, the spirit glides out the door again. But as she glides out, the boy wakes and sees the edge of the hat and robes slipping out the doorway.

"Thank you Painted Lady" The spirit leans back into the door for a second, nods, and leaves the lodge, slipping away towards the edge of the village and into the lake again. Unknown to all, a blue and white faced demon is watching from the roof of the building, and nods as it slips away into the night.

Closing A/N: Did anyone else ever notice that Toph is clinging to Aang's arm while they're on the Jang Hui boardwalks? I totally never noticed that. Then again, this in NO way means that I'll have a taang pairing – I mean, they're both TWELVE. And yes, I couldn't resist having a bit of Blue Spirit/Painted Lady interaction. But that has to wait for the next update.... which won't take 2 months, I promise. Hopefully I'll have it posted by this time next week, if not earlier.


	6. The Painted Lady, Part II

A/N: Here we go, Part II. And not 2 months later, either. Heh heh, whoops.

**BOOK 3: FIRE**  
CHAPTER THREE: THE PAINTED LADY, PART II

The next day, as the kids arrive in Jang Hui, they see Dock polishing his statuette of the Painted Lady with a rag as they approach his market stall. Coming up to him, Sokka smiles a wild grin as he asks if Shu's around.

"Let me check" running around his counter, Dock ducks beneath the counter the change hats (and personas). "Hey there! Back again, are ya?"

"We need more food. Our friend is sick and we can't leave until he's better" Toph said, slightly irritated. She hated being in this stupid village, she decided as she hung onto Zuko's arm. She hates being the helpless little blind girl that her parents thought that she was. Dock generously gives them a plate of rancid looking clams that they instantly recoil from.

"Oh well, that's too bad. Maybe if you guys are lucky, the Painted Lady will visit you on the night, and heal your friend" Shu smiled as he picked his figurine back up and resumed polishing it.

"And maybe she'll cook us a midnight snack, and we'll all have a sing-along." Sokka said sarcastically, rolling his eyes and throwing his arms in the air.

"Maybe she will…." Zuko mumbled under his breath, shooting a sharp look at Katara, who pretended not to notice. Toph heard him, though, and she punched him in his side.

"What are you talking about?" she hissed under his breath at him.

"Zuko, hoping that she couldn't detect his lie, said "Uncle's a great believer in the spirits. Besides, all us of except you have met the Moon and Ocean spirits, so why not?"

Oblivious to Sokka's obvious sarcasm, Shu continued speaking. "Yeah, maybe, you never know! You know, last night she visited us again. Healed most of our sick folks."

"Is that why this place seems so festive?" Aang asked, watching a group of enthusiastic villagers erecting a large wooden statue of the Painted Lady.

"Yep, and it's all thanks to the Painted Lady." Says Shu, setting down the statuette again.

"Can you believe how much an entire village can be affected by one lady-I mean spirit?" Katara said, reddening slightly from her slip of the tongue. Although everyone else either ignored or didn't notice, Zuko did. Toph felt him stiffen, and tried to ask him what was up, but he just shook his head and told her not to worry.

"Well, I hope that she returns every night, for your sake. Otherwise this place would go right back to the way it was before she started these visits.

"Why would you say that? Look at how much better off these people are!" Katara replied hotly, eager to defend the Painted Lady.

"Yeah, sure, _now_, but without her they wouldn't be able to fend for themselves. If she really wanted to help, she would use her fancy spirit magic to blow up that factory." Pointing at the factory upstream, Sokka waved his arms around his head before bring them down and throwing them up, showing an explosion. "Ooooooo… Pow!"

Crossing his arms and rolling his eyes, Aang tried to lecture Sokka. "Spirit magic doesn't work that way. I'd know." With an impish grin on his face, he uncrosses his arms and begins a ridicoulouly convoluted dance. "It's more like this. Wooooo…"

Sokka, Aang and Toph all started to laugh and do their own imitations of what they think the spirit magic would be like as Katara stormed off angrily to the end of the boardwalk, looking at the factory churning out smoke and industrial waste in the distance. Zuko watched her carefully from the shadows, smiling ever so faintly.

--- --- --- oOo --- --- ---

Later that night, at the campsite, Katara slips out of her sleeping bag and stuffs some of Appa's hay into it to make it look like she's sleeping soundly. She dons a makeshift Painted Lady get-up – a long, tattered gown with a rice hat and a long, sweeping diaphanous veil. As she reached for face paint to apply the tattoos, he notices that it's not where she placed it a second beforehand.

"Looking for this, Lady Spirit?" she hears a distinctive raspy voice behind her. Closing her eyes in chagrin, she replied.

"How did you know, Zuko?" Turning around, he sees his trademark grin on his face. He's holding her shell of paint, and wearing all black.

"Easy enough. You have a saviour complex, Katara. Those Earthbenders, Ba Sing Se…. me. It was pretty easy to tell that this affected you. So I went into town last night, and sure enough, the Painted Lady made an appearance. But it was you yourself that gave it away. I was only sure after you mistakenly said how much a single _lady_, not spirit, could do. Also…" Zuko stuck out his tongue. It was dyed a rich violet color. "I found some burkleberries yesterday morning as I was running through my katas. They used to be my favourite berries from when I was a kid precisely because they'd dye my mouth purple."

"But… how did you manage to get into the village without me noticing? I mean, it's in the middle of a lake!" Katara sputtered out, trying not to drop her jaw in disbelief.

"Didn't Aang ever tell you guys how sneaky I can be, when I need to be?" a grin for a second, before his smile dropped. "No, I suppose he wouldn't…" A brief look of pain entered his eyes before they became hard glass once again.

"What do you mean?" Katara demanded – if he found out her secret, no way by La's light would she not discover his!

"Ask him about Pohuai Stronghold later. That's all I'm saying." Handing her her shell of paint, he continued. "And don't worry about the others waking up. I convinced Aang to sleep near Sokka tonight, so he won't hear anything over his snores. And I convinced Toph to sleep on a blanket, so she won't feel us leaving."

"What do you mean, _us_? This is my mission, and I don't need any help with it." Katara said indignantly, applying the finishing touches on her paint.

"You're not the only one with an alter ego, Katara" Zuko said as he pulled out a mask from behind his back. It was a blue and white grinning obi mask.

"That looks an awful lot like the how the Blue Spirit is rumoured to … YOU! You were the Blue Spirit!" Clamping a hand over her mouth, Zuko fiercely whispered.

"Do you want to wake everybody up? Questions later, okay? Right now, let's just get into town. What's on the agenda for tonight?"

"Well, if you really want to help me, Blue, there's one more thing that I have to do before w leave tomorrow..." Shooting her a glare at the new nickname, Zuko slowly nods.

--- --- --- oOo --- --- ---

At the factory not even an hour later, Zuko and Katara are looking up at the gigantic factory.

"You seriously want to destroy this factory" Zuko says incredulously, looking at the titanic steel and stone structure.

"Yes. Sokka was just kidding, but he was right. Getting rid of this factory is the only way to help these people permanently." Katara's eyes held the light of ultimate conviction.

They enter the structure and get to work. Grabbing the water from her water pouch (which had been stealthily hidden beneath the long, flowing robes), Katara shot a blast of water at the hanging buckets of molten iron, sending them crashing to the ground and spilling their contents. At the same time, Zuko was having a mini-crisis.

_Breathe, Zuko, and remember Uncle's lessons._ Taking a deep breath, Zuko assumed a Low Tiger stance and placed both hands in the direction of the main melting vat and prepared to perform one of the most advanced techniques that he knew. Iroh had supposedly learned it from Fire Lord Azulon himself, who had learned it from the great Fire Lord Sozin. Ozai himself hadn't learnt this trick – he had considered it beneath him to bend anything but fire or lightning_. Reach underneath the fire, underneath the metal, grab the underlying energy…. There. _ With a tug at the edges of his awareness, he brought his hand across his body and bent the heat itself out from the metal itself, drawing it through his chi and out over _there_.

Katara looked on dumbfounded as the Blue Spirit drew the heat out of the metal and blasted a cone of shimmering air towards the base of the large smokestacks, literally melting a swath of destruction in a wide arc. She managed to shake herself out of her awe long enough to realise that he had started to destroy other vital factory components. Not wanting to be outdone, her competitive nature made her bring her arms to her side and summon a huge tsunami to flood out the factory. Sparing a tendril of water to bring Zuko off the ground floor, they watched in mixed horror and amazement as the superheated metal and the cool water reached the coal stockpile at the same time. Grabbing Katara, Zuko threw them out the window, into the river, just as the explosion overtook where they had been standing.

--- --- --- oOo --- --- ---

As they slowly walk back to camp, sore and tired from their extreme bending the night before, Zuko pulls Katara aside for a second just as the sun rises.

"Katara… could you not tell the others about… this?" He asked holding the remains of his (second) Blue Spirit mask in his hands.

"Only if you don't tell them about destroying the factory." She smiled, and was rewarded with a small reddening of his cheeks. Noticing how close they were to the camp, she placed a finger in front of her lips. "Shhh, we don't want to wake Sokka." As they got into camp, however, the others were already awake. "Hi! Sokka! We were just…out on a…morning walk!"

Sokka, didn't like how the two benders were leaning on each other. _How dare he be that close to my sister…_ Reminding himself of why he was really angry, he continued on in a sickly sweet voice. "Oh, really. A morning walk "Dumping out the contents of her sleeping bag on the ground, his voice dropped back to his normal tone. "I know that you're the Painted Lady. I know that you've been sneaking out at night, and I know that you've been lying about Appa and feeding him purpilizing tongue berries." Toph popped out from behind him, sticking out her purple tongue and holding a bag of similarly coloured berries. "Katara, what you did put our whole mission in jeopardy. We're leaving right now." Turning to Zuko, he puts on his best "Fearless Leader" face for the intimidating firebender. "And how long did you know about this , Zuko?

With a half-smile, Zuko replied. "Oh, not too long now. But I can't believe you guys didn't figure it out."

"Sparky's telling the truth" Toph said from beside Sokka. "…Wait, _that's_ why you reacted when Sugar Queen said that bit about how much one lady could do?"

"Right as usual, Toph." Zuko walked over to her and gave her a brotherly hair ruffle.

--- --- --- oOo --- --- ---

Later, at the campsite, the Team is packing up their bags and Appa when a strange sound fills the air. Zuko recognises the sound. "Jetskis. There's Fire Nation Soldiers on the river, likely Home Guard." With a guilty look at Katara, he looks down as they both blush.

Aang doesn't like the look that passes between the two benders. He realises that he never truly let Katara go – he should have been invincible in the Avatar State. If a single bolt of lightning took him down, he must not have reached the true Avatar State. Remembering the words that General Iroh had told him – "_Perfection and power are overrated. I think you were very wise to choose happiness and love." _– He realised that that's exactly what he had done. Throwing himself between Zuko and Katara, he stared up at Zuko as menacingly as he could. "What's going on?"

"Fire Nation soldiers are heading to the village." Sokka said, looking down river. Glaring at Zuko and Katara, he asked them angrily. "What did you do?"

With a guilty look at the Team and a quick glance at Zuko, who answered her with a barely perceptible nod, she confessed. "Me and Zuko, you see…. We kinda destroyed their factory last night."

His jaw dropping in shock, Sokka looked as if he was about to hit Zuko. "You what? !"

"It was your idea!" She yelled indignately, not caring who heard anymore.

"I was joking! I also said to use spirit magic and made funny noises. Did you even think this through? The army's totally gonna blame the villagers. They're headed there right now to get revenge!" Sokka yelled back, equally furious at his sister.

"Well, what was I supposed to do ?" she yelled back.

"Leave! Do nothing!" Sokka continued pacing back and forth.

Getting right up to his face, Katara stabbed her finger to his nose. "No. I will never, _ever_ turn my back on people who need me." Throwing her arms into the air, she grabs her water skin and her Painted Lady outfit. "I'm going down to the village, and I am going do whatever I can. Let's go, Zuko." After a moment of hesitation, Katara snaps at Zuko angrily. "Are you coming, _Blue_?" Grumbling something about blackmail, Zuko gets up while breathing a small plume of flame in anger.

After another moment of hesitation, Sokka grabs his boomerang and gets up. "Wait. I'm coming too."

With a healthy load of anger still in her voice, Katara snapped back at him. "I thought you didn't want to help."

"I don't" Sokka said in a rare burst of honesty. "I just want to lay low, and get out of here. But _you_ need me, and I will never turn my back on you. We're family, after all, and that's what family does."

Katara's almost in tears as she runs back and hugs Sokka. "Sokka. You really do have a heart."

Zuko looks on at the moment of sibling bonding with a slightly jealous half smile_. If only me and Azula could have been like that… But some things are not meant to be. And besides…_ Looking at the young earthbender, who had just punched Aang, he felt a warm glow in his heart. _Sometimes your true family finds you._

--- --- --- oOo --- --- ---

The leader of this group of Home Guard, and Commander of the factory, General Mung, had arrived in Jang Hui. He was pacing on the edge of the boardwalk, flanked by a few guards as he railed against the town. "I thought we could live as neighbours, in peace. But I guess I was wrong. You steal our food, our medicine…and then you destroy our factory."

Popping out from the crowd, Dock yelled back at him. "We didn't do any of that." Hiding back in the crowd, he emerges not two seconds later wearing his Shu hat. "Yeah, the Painted Lady brought us food. She's the one that healed our sick, not your medicine."

As he rolled his eyes, the general continued on in a sarcastic tone of voice. "Oh, right, the mysterious Painted Lady did it. And I suppose she drew the army emblem on your containers, too. This is a town of thieves and liars!" Clenching his fists in anger, he shoots a fireball at a nearby house, engulfing it in flames. "Where's your Painted Lady now, huh? We're going to cure the world of this wretched village, one building at a time!" With a nod at his entourage, they all begin blasting fireballs at any structure in range, slowly demolishing the village. As two of them light a large, likely flammable ball perched on a platform in the river, a wind blows it out. Surprised, the soldiers shrug and light it again. It blows out again. Eerie piping sounds begin to rise out from the lake, and the soldiers spin in circles, trying to figure out where it's coming from. One of the soldiers points out over the lake at a huge bed of heavy mist that appears as if summoned. "Look at that! Where's it coming from ?" Another soldier looks at her, shrugs, then answers. "I don't know. Something strange is going on." A low growling is heard from over the lake, joining the sounds of piping.

"It's the Painted Lady. She's coming." General Meng turns to the speaker, a young boy. He's standing near the edge of the water, staring vacantly out over the lake.

Infuriated, the general blasts fire into the air as he screams at the assembled crowd. "Let's get one thing straight. There. Is. No. Painted. LADY!"

A Home Guard officer comes up to him, as near as he dares, and asks his commanding officer: "Then what's that sound ?" a dull, regular thudding sound, almost as if it's the footsteps of titans, has begun. "Maybe it _is_ her, sir."

The fog parts as if cut with a blade and a figure is revealed. Dressed in long robes and a conical hat with a wispy, almost ephemeral veil surrounding her, its seen walking on the surface of the water itself. After it pauses, it suddenly bursts towards Jang Hui in a fit of speed until she reaches the boardwalk. With a seemingly effortless hop that propels her over the final few feet of water and onto the wooden surface, she slowly walks towards the Home Guard.

With real fear evident in his eyes, General Meng recalls a story that his grandmother used to tell him about the spirits, and how Rhasta, the Phoenix Spirit, razed an entire village in a matter of seconds when they had destroyed its nest. "Do something!" He cries, pushing his soldiers forward, desperate to do anything to avoid facing the rightful wrath of the spirits. As they draw near, they're pushed back by a sudden blast of wind. "Stand your ground!" he bellows, hoping that no one can hear the slight tremble of fear in his voice. With nearly contemptuous ease, the Painted Lady sweeps her arm out and sends a pair of jet skis into a cliff face, destroying them in a ball of flame. As she raises her hand to wreak further damage, the Fire Soldiers jump into the remaining jet skis and speed off, leaving their commanding officer to deal with the angry spirit alone. Swallowing his fear, Mung lowers himself into a Half Horse Stance and prepares to fling a fireball at the spirt. "I'll take care of you myself, spirit. I'm not afraid of you."

With that proclamation, he bends an arc of flames at her, only to have it fade from existence as she seems to effortlessly slap it away with her hand. Stepping onto the water, a platform of polluted liquid rises to meet her feet. With a simple gesture, Mung is sent flying away in a burst of wind to land in the river. As he rises to the top of the water, the spirit speaks in a threatening tone.

"Leave this village… and never come back."

Desperately away from her, Mung is nearly in tears as a stray jet ski passes by and he clambers into it a second before it jets off. At the same moment, Sokka and Toph arrive by rowboat to the village, and Zuko sneakily climbs out from his hiding place underneath the dock, next to Aang. The three kids arrive in the crowd just as they approach the Painted Lady. "I knew you'd come." The little boy, who had stared over the water, said to her.

With a big grin on his face, Dock thanked her as best he could. "Thank you, Lady. Me and my brothers really owe you a lot." As he approaches, he realises that this girl is familiar. "Hey, wait a minute! I know you! You're not the Painted Lady, you're that colonial girl! You've been tricking us. You're a waterbender!" A random villager wearing greys joins Dock in yelling at Katara. "She's a waterbender! How dare you act like our Painted Lady !"

As the crowd runs forward in anger, they're stopped by two bodies. Zuko and Sokka look at the other in surprise – Sokka didn't think that Zuko cared enough about his sister to place himself between her and an angry mob, while Zuko simply hadn't seen Sokka arrive. As Sokka's about to speak, Zuko unleashes a plume of fire from his mouth and roars at the crowd.

"Enough! Maybe she is a waterbender, but she was just trying to help you. Because of her, that factory won't be polluting your river, and the army is gone. You should be down on your knees thanking her. Are you really so prejudiced against her simply because she's a waterbender? You, Dock, should know better, out of everyone. Hasn't she been a perfectly nice young lady? Is she now a horrible monster because of the fact that she's a waterbender?"

Hearing the pain in his Zuko's voice, Sokka surprises himself by placing a hand on Zuko's shoulder. Zuko's as surprised as he is, and their eyes meet for a second. Sokka's surprised once again by the Prince as he witnesses a pool of shame and guilt, but he only sees it for a second before the golden eyes turn to glass again.

"Zuko, it's okay." With a grateful nod to the firebender, she removes her hat and addresses the villagers once again. "I shouldn't have acted like someone I wasn't, and I shouldn't have tricked you. But I felt like I had to do something. It doesn't matter if the Painted Lady is real or not. Because your problems are real, and this river is real. You can't wait around for someone to help you. You have to help yourself."

Hanging his head low, Dock speaks what everyone is thinking. "They're both right, but what should we do ?"

Toph, who has hidden been hidden in the crowd until now, clears her throat and tries to speak in a manly voice. "Maybe we can clean the river?"

Nodding his head, Dock begins to smile at this idea. "Yeah, we can clean the river!" At the crowd's cheering, he turns to face Sokka and the two benders again. "Thank you. You know, you're not so bad for a waterbender."

With a nervous glance, Sokka sidles up to Dock and nudges him with his elbow. "You wouldn't mind keeping that a secret, by the way, would you ?"

With a laugh, Dock replies. "Not a problem. Keeping my mouth shut is a personal specialty. My brother Shu, on the other hand, hoo! He's a blabbermouth."

"So, Dock, are you going to help us clean ?" Katara asks, wiping her face of the stifling paint.

"No, ma'am. I'm going to get my other brother, Bushi. He loves cleaning rivers." Reaching behind his back, Dock grabs a new hat, this one a conical rice hat, similar to the one that the Painted Lady wears, and finishes talking. "Alright, I'm Bushi! Let's get some river cleaning done."

Aang, who had climbed out from his hiding spot while the others were talking, joined Team Avatar, as well as Toph. Seeing him grab the hat and change it right in front of him, he jumped on the chance. "Aha, I knew it! I knew you were the same guy. You're the shop owner and the boat guy."

With a perplexed look, Bushi answered Aang: "Oh, you must be talking about my brothers, Dock and Shu"

Exasperated, Aang was close to giving up. "No, I just saw you! You switched hats and called yourself a different name!"

Dock with a slightly insane grin, he knelt conspiratorially next to Aang and stage-whispered to him. "Oh, you know who does that my brother Dock. He's _crazy_."

Fuming, Aang walks away with his hands thrown up.

--- --- --- oOo --- --- ---

The afternoon is spent cleaning the river, with extensive bending help from the kids. They work all day, but by sunset, the river is blue and clean once more.

--- --- --- oOo --- --- ---

It's night-time, and back at the camp, Katara has gone down to the river to practice bending. It's a full moon, and she's finding it difficult to sleep. The fog rolls in, and as she tries to reflexively dismiss it, she finds that she can't. A figure slowly melts out from the mists – It appears that the legends of Jang Hui are necessarily only legends. It's the Painted Lady herself, luminous in the moonlight. A voice suddenly echoes in her head, and it sounds like a rushing river mixed with a gurgling creek. Thank you… As sudden as the apparition appears, it vanishes, leaving nothing behind in its wake. With a smile, Katara walks back up the river bend to join her friends in slumber. She sees Zuko sleeping, but decides to ask him about the Blue Spirit at a later date, on where dirty little earthbenders can't overhear. She can't help but feel that Zuko sharing this secret with her binds them in some way, and she's slightly disturbed by the fact that it doesn't bother her – in fact, she feels a warmth in the bottom of her spine at the thought.

--- --- --- oOo --- --- ---

Closing A/N: Is it just me, or does the Village of Jang Hui have a crazy man as their spokesperson. Anybody? I mean, he's clearly the figure who everyone listens to… Anywyas, hopefully the next update won't take two months… again….


	7. Sokka's Master, Part I

A/N: Here we go, Sokka's Master. Everything that I don't type should be assumed to be canon, mainly because Sokka will be of doing his training and I don't particularly want to do a training thingy. So I'm pretty much going to stay with the rest of the Gaang, so this chapter might only be the one part. The next update might be a while, because I'm trying to balance not only life and fanfiction, but trying to restore a LITTLE equality to how much time I spend on my three stories (this one, Healing Lightning, a post-series Zutara, and Dancing with Wolves, a VERY AU story (also Zutara, of course). Also working on a second Jinko (Zuko/Jin) chapter-fic from a couple of random plot bunnies, and I have a Toko (Friendship) oneshot that I want to get out of the way… arg). Anyways, all reviews are welcome, as well as criticisms, as WELL as suggestions for what the hell to do with the Western Air Temple episode… and the Boiling Rock. Heh heh… Anyways, on with the story after this insanely long A/N…

**BOOK 3: FIRE**  
CHAPTER FOUR: SOKKA'S MASTER (PART I)

Team Avatar finds themselves underneath the stars not long after the incident at Jang Hui. They're all on their backs, watching the heavens slowly rotate in the background as a spectacular meteor shower occupies the foreground of the sky.

"Wow, this is amazing to watch." Katara said, in amazement at the shower.

Lightly smirking, Zuko props himself up on his elbow and leans over to her. "This is Ta Min's Shower, named after the wife of Avatar Roku. It passes through the Fire Nation sky every twelve years."

After a momentary glare at Zuko for being so close to his sister, Sokka shrugs his shoulders and leans back on the shelter for Appa that Toph and Aang had bent, and takes in the magnificent sight. "Kind of makes you realize how insignificant we are."

"Eh, you've seen nothing once; you've seen it 1,000 times." Toph says with a nonchalant shrug, glad for the temporary rest from Appa's back. However much she loved the furry beast, she hated being blind.

"Oh, man. You've _never_ not seen anything like this." Sokka said as he sat up, along with everyone else. A blue fireball, falling from the sky, heads straight for them until it blazes over their heads and continues on down the valley behind them. Toph rolls her eyes, thinking that they're trying to pull her leg or something, until she feels something. Kilometres to the south, she feels a massive impact.

"_That's_ something I've never felt." She says, oblivious to the nervous looks of the others as the others watch the meteor's crash and see the massive plume of smoke rising from the impact site.

They all scramble on top on Appa, Toph taking a second to earthbend the shelter back down, and head for the impact zone. Flying towards the site, they see a town not too far from the stack of smoke, and the villagers are all out in the streets, milling around in a sort of daze. As they pass it and reach the meteorite, flames have engulfed the area, and the flames will quickly pass to the village.

"The fire is going to destroy that town." Katara looks worried. As Aang opens his mouth and heads towards her, Zuko appears from the shadows and places a hand on her shoulder.

"Not if we get there first."

As Aang slides back down Appa's neck to land him, a second small explosion rocks the valley as the superheated crater makes contact with the cooler air from the sky bison's passage. Everybody except Katara jumps off and heads towards the periphery of the fire as Katara slides down to where Aang had been and takes his reins.

"There's a creek over here. I'll bend the water on to the fire." With a "Yip yip!" she whips Appa's reins and they fly off to the nearby stream.

Taking charge, Zuko observes the fire for a second before making a snap decision. "Toph, make a trench to keep the fire from getting any closer to the village. Aang, I need you to bend sand onto the fire. I'll take care of the fire directly until Katara can get here." With that, he runs straight at the fire, moving his arms in a flowing motion, almost like waterbending, as he grabs the fire and slashes the air in front of his body while trailing flames, breaking the root of the flame. _I remember, Uncle. _

Slapping his club into his hand, Sokka stares dejectedly after the trio of benders. "Uh, guys? What should I do ?"

Seeing Momo gliding through the air, squawking in primal terror from the intensity of the blaze, Aang gets an idea. "Take care of Momo"

As Momo lands on his head and chirps curiously into his ear, Sokka throws up his hands in disgust. "So what, I'm just a lemur-sitter?" with a sad chirp, Sokka realises that he insulted the furry animal. Patting Momo's head, he tries to comfort him. "There, there. Feel better ?"

Aang and Toph run off to join Zuko in fighting the flames. As Aang grabs Toph, she tells him to "Hit it, Twinkletoes!" and he airbends them up an over the fire, to place themselves in between the village and the fire. As they take their stances, they force their hands down, and with it, the earth. Flinging their hands in opposing directions, they create a fissure in the earth. Planting themselves in a slightly different stance, they bend the earth outwards, pushing it away from the habitations.

As they do this, a flurry of embers flies off toward Sokka and Zuko. Zuko absentmindedly flicks his hand at them, barely looking, and they fly off in Sokka's direction. Finally seeing a purpose, Sokka jumps at the grounded embers and pounds one into the ground as Momo leaps off. Turning around to get the next one, he sees that the lemur has already extinguished the half dozen other ones. Shooting Momo a dirty look, he hears Appa's distinctive groaning overhead as Katara gets back. She sprays a powerful jet of water at the raging fire, dampening most of the flames that Zuko hadn't gotten to yet. Toph grabs a huge rectangle of rock and rolls it over and over near the village-side of the impact site, as Katara passes what's left of her water orb down to Aang as she goes to land him.

"Sokka, stand clear" Aang warns as he manipulates the water above his head, trying to get enough momentum to hit the fire. _Feel the push and the pull, Master Pakku said, push and…. Pull._ With a mighty effort, he directs the flow to the fire and airbends a massive wind at the same time to help it get a bit of distance. Sokka, who hadn't moved fast enough, was caught unawares by the water and got drenched. As Aang shoots him a sheepish grin as he moves farther into the fire, he brings the globe into the middle of the crash site with him. Grabbing it and compressing it, he lets it go when he can't hold it anymore. Held by unnatural forces too long, the globe releases tension in a most destructive way – it explodes, falling down as a snowy mess.

Dusting off his hands, Aang looks at the blackened ground and smiles to himself. "Good work, everybody. Didn't we do great, Katara? You and me, going all swoosh with that water."

Punching his arm, Toph spoke up angrily. "We should include EVERYBODY, Twinkletoes. You didn't even aknowledge me, the greatest earthbender that ever lived." After a loudly cleared throat behind her, Toph shrugged. "Oh yeah, and Sparky here who came up with the plan."

With a blush, Aang merely shrugged and looked at Katara, who was looking at Toph with a mildly disapproving look on her face, but was incredibly mothering at the same time. The face that he thought that he had let go of, but he realised that he loved none-the-less. _Iroh was right: Perfection and power are overrated. I'd be very wise to choose happiness and love over the mastery of the Avatar State. Besides, is any of this worth it if I can't have her in the end?_

Unnoticed by all, a sputtering Sokka suddenly burst out of a snow bank. Angry that no one had noticed that he was gone, he grumbles off alone towards Appa as the others make their way towards Appa.

Hours later, when the sun has nearly reached its zenith, the Gaang was enjoying fire Nation cuisine at a place that Zuko had scouted out earlier that morning. They were all sitting at a table on a balcony overlooking the nearby river.

"These people have no idea how close they were to getting toasted last night." Aang said through a mouthful of ramen, as Katara looked on disapprovingly.

"Can't you finish eating before you talk, Aang?" Katara had noticed that she was beginning to act more and more motherly towards the members of their family. Except Zuko, that is. She couldn't bring herself to treat him as a child. He had proved, through fire and pain, that he was no child. He had picked up the slack where she couldn't deal. He had even begun to help with laundry, and she had been floored the first time that he had.

--- --- --- oOo --- --- ---

It had been a week since they had left the confines of Hakoda's stolen Fire Navy ship. However glad she was to be free of the floating metal hulk, she _did_ miss one thing. The Fire Nation had nearly perfected a washing machine that did the laundry for them. All it required was excess steam from the engines, and it cleaned all the clothes. She had gone down to the nearby stream to do the group's laundry when she saw a figure hunched over the stream, dipping its hands into the water. Dropping her load, she raised her arms in preparation for a strike, until she realised that she knew the shadowed shape.

"Zuko?" she managed to gasp.

Zuko jumped into a defensive position, ready to attack the person who had recognised him. He heard a burst of laughter, and, looking around, realised why. His shirt that he had been washing had gotten caught in his hands and was dripping from his forward hand. With a slight blush, he managed to identify the voice. "Katara?"

"What are you _doing_?" she managed to gasp out, surprised. What was the prince doing in the stream, washing his laundry?

"...Washing my clothes, what does it look like?" Zuko replied, slight smirk on his face.

"But... you're a _Prince_." She sputtered, unbelieving.

"A prince who lived in the roughs of the Earth Kingdoms for months. We didn't exactly have servants to do our bidding. Me and Uncle had to figure out quite a number of things on our own." A pained look came across his face as he thought about his uncle in Azula's care.

Without another word, Katara lifted up her load and put it beside the river and started washing in silence as Zuko continued with his. He finished just before Katara, even though he had less to wash simply because her waterbending made it go much faster. As they walked together back to the camp in silence, she began to hang up the clothes. When she finished, she noticed Zuko neatly folding his clothes and replacing them in his sack.

As she turned away for a second, she felt a breath of warm air hit the back of her neck. Turning back towards the clothes, she noticed that they had been dried. Seeing no trace of Zuko, she heard Aang's voice nearby. He must have whisked over here to dry the clothes... what a sweet kid. As she went to thank him, however, he had no idea what she was talking about. Toph, walking within earshot, began to cackle.

"Oh, Sugar Queen, you really _are_ clueless. I totally owe Zuko now."

"Wha.. what do you mean, Toph?" Katara managed to sputter out, completely confused. "The clothes were dried by wind, Toph. No one else could have done it."

"**Think** about it, Sugar Queen. The clothes were dried by _warm air_." Rolling her eyes in disgust and throwing up her hands, Toph walked away, back towards a tree where Katara could faintly see an outline that she presumed to be Zuko.

For the Laundry Days after that, the clothes were always dry as soon as Katara turned her back. It had taken her nearly a month before she caught Zuko bending residual heat from the day into a draft of warm air to dry the clothes.

--- --- --- oOo --- --- ---

Katara was shaken out of her reverie by Toph. "Yeah, the worst thing about being in disguise is we don't get the hero worship anymore. I miss the love."

"Boo-hoo, poor heroes." Sokka's voice could be heard from the ledge of the restaurant. He was sitting there, a tray of steaming food sitting beside him. Katara knew that whatever was bothering him must be serious for Sokka not to eat.

Concerned, Katara left her food at the table and walked over next to him. "What's your problem ? You haven't even touched your smoked sea slug."

Throwing up his hands, Sokka sighed. "It's just…all you guys can do this awesome bending stuff, like putting out forest fires, and flying around, and making other stuff fly around. I can't fly around, ok ay? I can't do anything. "

"That's not true." Katara said reassuringly, placing her hand on his shoulder. "No one can read a map like you."

Snorting, Toph laughed. "Oma and Shu, I can't read at all."

"Yeah, and who keeps us laughing with sarcastic comments all the time? I mean, look at Katara's hair, right ?" Aang pops over with a minor feat of subtle airbending and grabs a lock of Katara's hair and gestures to it "What's up with that, eh?"

Blushing, Katara wraps one of her hair loopies around her finger and twirls it. "What... What's wrong with my hair ?"

Smacking Aang on the back of his head, Zuko wanders over. "Nothing's wrong with your hair, Katara."

Katara looks left and right nervously, trying to cover her hair before Zuko spoke out. After she heard what he said, she blushed even more furiously. Aang noticed this and stealthily shot a dirty look at Zuko. _Who does he think he is, trying to steal my girl? I think that I need to have a little talk with Sifu Hotman concerning my Katara... _

"Look, I appreciate the effort, but the fact is each of you is so amazing and so special, and I'm not, okay?" Sokka looked over at the assembled benders, each of them more powerful than he could imagine being. "I'm just the guy in the group who's regular."

Katara and Zuko sit down next to him, and Katara puts a hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry you're feeling so down, but I hope you know none of us see you that way. We'll find something that's going make you feel better, right Zuko?"

"...You will?"

--- --- --- oOo --- --- ---

A/N: Sorry 'bout this taking so long, I'm being a perfectionist. The next part will come out ASAP.


	8. Sokka's Master, Part II

A/N: ...And here's the promised conclusion. I've realised that for this story, I tend to upload a pair of chapters (a single episode) relatively close to each other but I have a big break in between.

--- --- --- oOo --- --- ---

Not long after they finished dinner, Zuko led the Gaang to a large building near the outskirts of town. As Sokka looked up at the name of the shop, he could barely make out the faded characters that spelt out "Pao's Weapon Emporium"

Excited, Sokka clapped his hands in glee. "Shopping! "

Rushing into the store, Sokka ran his hands along the racks of weapons, occasionally reaching in and grabbing a weapon and testing its heft.

"Maybe a little something to reinvigorate my battling." Pulling a nunchaku from the rack, he begins to twirl it experimentally. "Hey, how about these ? Ho-ya! Smack-a-dacka-doo!" Twirling the nunchaku faster and faster, he begins to try and flip them around his body. After a few initial successes, he smacked himself in his face, knocking himself over. In the process, he also managed to knock over a rack of pole weapons.

"Way to go, Snoozles. You're a one-man army, alright." Toph snorted sarcastically, grinning like a crazy badger-mole.

"Hey Katara, what do you think of this?" Katara looks over to Aang, smiling at her brother's antics. She looks and is momentarily shocked. She could barely see Aang through the armour that he had donned. It was all harsh edges and jagged spines, made out of a dark, yet strangely reflective, metal that looked extremely heavy. "Pretty heroic, huh? All I need to complete the outfit is a wind sword.

Shielding her eyes from the lens flare coming off of the armour, Katara asked Aang the logical question. "What's a wind sword ?"

Suddenly, Zuko butted in. "It's a rumoured Air Nomad weapon from back before they were 'enlightened'. It's just a sword handle and hilt that they use to focus their airbending into a condensed blade of air." Seeing the flabbergasted looks on Katara and Aang's faces, he merely shrugged. "What? I was preparing for a fully awakened Air Nomad Avatar who had survived Sozin's comet. I figured that he would have started to use lethal weapons."

Swallowing back her fear, Katara turned to Aang. "Is it... true? Would you have used a lethal weapon?"

Trying to regain Katara's trust, Aang tries to stammer out an answer that pleasing to her. "I mean, what I meant to say was..." As he had been talking, he had tried to move his arms, which had begun to tip the armour. Katara and Zuko reached out to grab him, but Aang pulled his arm away from Zuko and Katara missed him, making him fall to the floor in a mighty crash, toppling another rack of polearms down the aisle, much to Sokka's pleasure.

"Hah! I'm not the only walking disaster area, Toph. Take it back!"

Sheepishly, Aang called from the floor, still encased in his steel cage. "I think that I'll just stick to what I got."

As Sokka tries out various other weapons, including a massive iron club, sai and guandao, Katara and Zuko help Aang out of his armour, with Zuko lecturing the entire time. "That's not how you attach a vambrace! No wonder you could barely move... did you just slap this on in whatever order you picked it up in?"

Hearing Sokka's nearly reverential gasp, everybody turned to see what had caught his eye _this_ time. They see a sword mounted on a wall plaque, raised above the others. A beautifully crafted sword is tucked into an equally well crafted scabbard featuring a design of a dragon. Zuko noticed a subtle lotus flower worked into the hilt of the sword. _No.... it's not possible...._

Walking right up to the sword, Sokka purrs to himself as he practically pets the sword. "That's what Sokka's talking about. "

From behind the assembled gang, a strong voice rings out. "You have an excellent eye, young man. That's probably the finest blade in this shop." Turning, the Gaang sees the owner of the shop walk up to them. "That there's a Piandao original. Forged from the finest grade steel by the hand of the famous Piandao himself, greatest swordsman and sword smith in the history of recorded Fire Nation history. He actually has a country home not far from here, a big castle up the road from here. Here's there now, actually." Walking away, the shopkeeper goes to help an older gentleman looking at the various spears next to the knocked over rack.

Snapping his fingers, Aang said: "That's it. That's exactly what you've needed all along, Sokka."

Still stroking the sword, Sokka looks distractedly at Aang out of the corner of his eye as he makes to pull the sword off its rack. "A sword?"

"Not the sword…a master. We've all had masters to help us get better. You should see if you can study with Piandao."

Getting caught up in the enthusiasm, Katara started nodding. "That's a great idea, Aang. I could've never gotten to where I am without Master Pakku. Everyone needs a teacher, right guys?"

"I learned from badger moles. They don't talk, but they're still good teachers." Toph said, giving Sokka an affectionate punch on the arm.

"And I had Uncle Ir... I mean Uncle." Zuko threw a suspicious look around the shop, to see if anybody had caught his near slip of the tongue. "But don't expect it to be easy. Piandao only takes the most promising of pupils."

"And how would you know?" Aang threw a glare at Zuko. _Try and one-up me in front of Katara, will you? I'm just glad that she's forgotten about the whole lethal weapon thing..._

A slight flush crept onto Zuko's cheeks as he looked down. "Ummm... no reason. Rumour, you know, I hear a lot of it." Only Katara saw him nervously stroke the handles of the dao blades that he had picked out for himself.

Pulling the sword from the scabbard, Sokka lets loose a low whistle at the fine quality of the blade. "It _would_ be nice to be a master swordfighter. All right, I'll talk to him."

--- --- --- oOo --- --- ---

"I can't believe that Sokka didn't let us come with him. I mean, did he think that we'd embarrass him, or something?" Toph complained, picking at her ear and grinning victoriously as she got some ear wax out and flicked it away. "I mean, come on, I'm one of the Bei Fongs, so I'm practically Earth Kingdom royalty, and Sparky here literally _is_ royalty."

The Gaang (minus Sokka) finds themselves in the country side with little to occupy their time. They're lying down in a circle, flat on their backs as Momo leisurely flies around and Appa takes a nap under a makeshift shelter. Momo finally lands next to Katara, in between her and Zuko, and lies don for a nap. They all fall silent after Toph's question, until finally Aang summons up the courage to say something.

"I'm bored.... What should we do today ?"

"Don't look at me, Twinkle Toes. I'm tapped out. I already picked my toes, _twice_."

"...Twice?"

"The first time was for cleaning, but the second time was just for the _sweet_ picking sensation."

"Sokka's been in charge of the schedule. I'm... really not sure what we should be doing."

Picking her nose, Toph joins in:"Plus, it's so hot today."

Trying to get some life back in the group, Aang jokingly asks Toph "how hot is it?"

"I don't know. _Real_ hot "

Sitting up, Katara tries to make a joke. "It's so hot, it's so hot…Momo is shedding like Appa!" Petting Momo, she desperately gropes for loose tufts of hair and flicks them from her fingers. Looking around wildly, she tries to gauge the reaction to her joke. "Huh, huh ?"

Scratching his head, Aang smiles helplessly in her direction. "I guess the jokes don't run in the family."

Throwing up her hands in disgust, Katara harrumphs. "Oh, everyone's a critic." Nobody can see Zuko's small, secret smile at her lame attempt at joking.

--- --- --- oOo --- --- ---

Hours later, the Gaang is all napping when suddenly Toph jumps up and yells at them to wake them up. "Sokka's coming!"

Aang and Katara wake up, gasping and smiling excitedly. Zuko slowly wakes up, surprisingly excited that Sokka's on his way back. He supposed that he had enjoyed the peace and quiet, all too rare in his life, but he could certainly do with a change of pace.

As Sokka walks up the hill, he calls out to the Gaang. "Hey, guys. What are you doing?"

Aang, Katara, and Toph all jump at Sokka and give him a group hug while Zuko hangs back in the shade, smiling at the bonding as he feels a slight twinge of jealousy. He wished that he and Azula could share a bond like that, instead of them being at each other's throats like they are. He's snatched from his musings as the others all start talking at once.

"Sokka! "

"You're back!"

"We missed you so much!"

Aang pulled back for a second. "Quick, Sokka, say something funny."

Giving Aang a sidelong look, Sokka asked; "Funny how?"

As both Aang and Katara laugh heartily, Zuko walks over to them and Sokka asks him and Toph "What's their deal?"

"I don't know. They missed you or something. I didn't care" As Toph turns away blushing and hides behind Zuko, he puts his arm out for Sokka.

"We're just glad that you're back."

"Thanks, Toph. That warms my heart. Anyways, guys, I need some help."

--- --- --- oOo --- --- ---

Not much later, the entire Gaang is pushing the meteorite up the slope to Piandao's estate. While the others are physically pushing, Toph is forcing it uphill with her earthbending, doing the majority of the work. The irony is not lost on Sokka – the smallest member of their team is doing the most work. As the reach the door, Sokka steps out from behind the meteorite and knocks both of the wrought iron door knockers ferociously. Almost immediately, Piandao opens one of the doors and steps out and sees the team assembled around the black rock.

"Who's this, Pupil Sokka?"

Suppressing the urge to flinch, Sokka makes a broad gesture at them. "Oh, these are my friends. Just other good Fire Nation folks." Piandao greets them all by bowing to each of them in turn. As he bows to Zuko, Zuko is positive that he sees a spark of recognition. _Please let him not remember me..._ At the slow smile that passes over Piandao's face, however, Zuko knows that he does. To his surprise, however, Piandao says nothing as Sokka continues. "Do you think we can make a sword out of a meteorite?"

Laying a hand on the meteorite, Piandao smiles. "We'll make a sword unlike any other in the world."

--- --- --- oOo --- --- ---

At the end of the day, when the sun was kissing the horizon, Sokka sits in front of Piandao with Katara, Aang, Zuko and Toph behind him. Motioning his butler to come forth with Sokka's sword, he begins to speak.

"Sokka, when you first arrived, you were so unsure. You even seemed down on yourself. But I saw something in you right away. I saw a heart as strong as a lion turtle, and twice as big. And as we trained, it wasn't your skills that impressed me." With a fond smile on his face, he silently chuckles. "No, it certainly wasn't your skills.

As Sokka looked at the ground, trying to hide his shame, Piandao continued. "You showed something beyond that." Unsheathing the sword, the slowly dying sunlight shimmered off of the pristine obsidian blade. "Creativity, versatility, intelligence…these are the traits that define a great swordsman. And these are the traits that define you." Sheathing the sword, he kneels to Sokka's level and hands him the blade. "When you came before me, you told me you didn't know if you were worthy, but I believe that you are more worthy than any man I have ever trained."

Sokka looks up to him to see the elderly swordsman smiling at him with a look of gentle pride in his eyes. Unable to stand it any longer, he bows his head in shame and admits his dark secret. "I'm sorry, Master. You're wrong. I am not worthy. I'm not who you think I am. I'm not from the Fire Nation. I'm from the Southern Water Tribe." Aang, Katara, and Toph all gawk at Sokka with shock and disbelief as Zuko slaps his head with his palm. "I lied so that I could learn swordsmanship from you. I'm sorry." Holding up his still-sheathed blade, Sokka surrenders the masterpiece to him.

Piandao frowns at this, and closes his eyes. "I am sorry as well, pupil." He quickly turns back around and swings his sword at Sokka. Sokka stands and avoids the attack, using his sheathed sword to block a thrust from Piandao. The Gaang gets up to help Sokka, but he holds them back with an upraised palm.

"No, this is my fight, alone." They are all silent as they descend from the summer house and enter a massive courtyard. In the courtyard, there is a ring set up for fighting, and Sokka and Piandao take opposing ends.

Aang, Katara, Toph, and Zuko watch from the upper part of the main building. Sokka takes an offensive stance, holding his blade nearly parallel to the ground near his ear, while Piandao takes a much more relaxed stance, holding his sword in front of him, pointing at the ground. Piandao starts the fight unexpectedly, striking at Sokka a handful of times, gauging his defence. Sokka manages to deflect the blows and manages to throw in a light counter attack. Piandao tries to sweep Sokka's feet out from underneath him with a sweeping strike, but he nimbly jumps over it. Zuko catches Piandao's small smile, but the others miss it, too entranced by the impressive swordsmanship. As the fight continues and eventually leaves the main courtyard, the Gaang is left wondering – _Who will win this?_

--- --- --- oOo --- --- ---

A few minutes later, Sokka comes running out of the bamboo at the edge of the fighting ring and back towards the marked area, screaming in terror and with Piandao not 10 feet behind him. Taking a look behind him, he notices that his opponent has vanished. Taking a few steps ahead as he turns, he sees Piandao in front of him, who promptly pokes his sword out in front of Sokka, trying to make him run into it. Sokka manages to lean back just in time, the blade coming a fingers width from slicing off his nose.

Stumbling forward, Sokka stabs his sword into the ground to stop his fall. Using his momentum, Sokka swings his sword back around, breaking the surface of the arena and flinging dirt and dust at Piandao. Momentarily blinded, the swordsmaster brings his blade behind him, hand extended in front, protecting his flank as he tilts his head to the side and tries to find his opponent as he blinks the dirt from his eyes. "Very resourceful, Sokka. Using the environment to your advantage. Smart."

Sokka nervously raises his sword defensively. He then slowly tries to sneak away, careful not to make any noises that would give away his location. Unfortunately, Sokka steps on the only twig left on Piandao's impeccable grounds, snapping it. Piandao turns his head towards Sokka when he hears it. He twirls his sword around into an offensive position and charges forward. Sokka takes a step back as Piandao closes in and stabs at him. Sokka barely manages to parry the attack, and Piandao catches Sokka's blade with his own, twirling his blade around the jet black sword twice before throwing it wide, embedding it into the ground.

Piandao swings his arm in a huge arc that looks like a finishing move, and Sokka closes his eyes, not wanting to see his death on the blade of this surprisingly honourable Fire Nation warrior. Sokka is surprised, however, when instead of a slicing sensation, he feels a jarring impact as he's knocked onto his butt. Opening his eyes, he sees Piandao's steel blade quivering in place between his eyeballs, not two inches from his skin. Team Avatar all jump down to Sokka's defence and rush towards him. Piandao, however, suddenly pulls his blade from its position near Sokka's face and points it at them.

"Excellent work, Sokka." Piandao says with the faintest traces of pride in his voice. As Sokka looks at the man with a guarded look, the older man motions to his butler. A swirl of displaced air whooshed by the team as Piandao's scabbard came flying from the shadows. Without sparing it a glance, and stil blinded by the dirt, he adjusts his sword and the sheath flies on with no difficulty. With a grin, Piandao looks at the team and smiles. "I think I'm a little old to be fighting the Avatar, wouldn't you say?"

The team all take relaxed stances and look him in shock as Zuko shakes in head. "How did you know?" Aang asks, his jaw nearly touching the ground.

Laughing, Piandao takes the cloth that his butler brought out and wipes at his eyes as Sokka stands up. "Oh, I've been around a while. You pick things up, don't you, Prince Zuko?" As the group slowly realised that he had known who they were all along, he continued. "Of course, I knew from the beginning that Sokka was Water Tribe. You might want to think of a better Fire Nation cover name, by the way. Try 'Lee' There's a million of them in the Fire Nation and Earth Kingdoms."

Flabbergasted, Katara managed to close her mouth long enough to speak: "But why would you agree to train someone from the Water Tribes? We're your enemy!"

"Silly girl" he chided gently. "The way of the sword doesn't belong to any one nation. Knowledge of the arts belongs to us all." Grabbing Sokka's sword, he hands it back to him. "Sokka, you must continue your training on your own. If you stay on this path, I am sure that that one day you will become a master that will rival the greatest swordsmen of any age."

As the Gaang is leaving through the doors, Zuko finally noticed what had been bugging him this entire time. _There was Lotus flowers __everywhere__. Subtly carved into the walls, floors.... there was even a massive one on the door!_ Sokka stopped for a second to give Toph a hunk of the meteorite, and as she started paying with it, they could hear a voice calling to them from the main house. The butler came running up to them, and he handed Zuko and Sokka a small package each. "The Master wanted you to have these, as something to remember him by."

Opening his bag, Sokka took out a small, hexagonal tile. Flipping it around, he noticed a White Lotus on it. "It's a Pai Sho tile."

As he looked to Zuko, he saw him holding his own matching tile, as well as a small, sheathed dagger. Looking at Zuko, he could see Zuko's smile that told him that he knew what the deal was with the tile. Before he could ask, however, Zuko unsheathed his dagger, and gasps came from all around. It was a beautifully embellished dagger, with a jet-black blade. Inlaid in silver were characters spelling out "Piandao". As Zuko turned the blade over in his hands, the group could see an actual smile appear on his face. The other side was inlaid with silver as well, except the description was different. This time, they spelt out: "Destiny is a funny thing"

Closing A/N: ...And so, Zuko's got his swords back. In case I implied that he already had them... you never read that (please? :p). The dagger is epic, and, of course, I couldn't resist making Zuko a member of the White Lotus. I mean, Sokka knows NOTHING about it, and Piandao gave it to him. I don't really like this half of the chapter, so I may do a re-write later on. As always, Reviews are amazing. Until next time, Densharr out.


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